E, a high school freshman, will have his first FINALS next week. I remember those days - studying, eating chocolate, studying, falling asleep on the floor next to a pile of books...
I have to say, 9th grade has been... intense. For a non-perfectionist bright kid who barely had to do any work during elementary and middle school and still got good grades, this was a huge change. He is still figuring out how to study, how to manage time, how to - and when - ask for help.
I feel rather inadequate as a parent. I should have made sure he had all these skills long before now... and he sort of knew that hard work was important. With violin, the more time and effort he put into it, the better he got... But I don't know, it just seems like the motivation with putting in the work into math or science or english classes is kind of fizzling out. With music, one can experience a pretty quick cause and effect. With schoolwork.... sometimes it's hard to have the end-game in sight.
Do you help your kids with school work? If so, how? How do you help them stay motivated?
In our high school we have exact same thing- a week of finals. I am giving two finals tomorrow, then on Monday and until Wednesday. I feel bad for the kids- it's a lot. Finals are huge, 120 questions, or more. As you know, my kids are still small, but I am a teacher and will always be a teacher so yes, I check their work, even for pre-school lol The kids are curious about grades, L gt a D on her project back in the winter, so we looked at it, unpacked it, and I explained that grades are not really grades- they are messages about what a student needs to work on/improve.
ReplyDeleteWith my high school students, motivation varies.. I use rhetoric a lot. I say phrases like "motivation is a muscle, it gets stronger with exercise!" they roll heir eyes at me behind my back lol but they do get to work. Another one " we work with a sense of agency in this class!" At the end, some students started redirecting other students "Johnny, work with agency!" They crack me up.
Ooh - "motivation is a muscle" - I like that!
DeleteI also really like what you said about grades being messages on what needs improvement... This is so important, and so easy to forget with all the messaging kids and parents get about "must get good grades!" "must have high GPA!"