There was a chapter in "Outliers" that focused on a school called KIPP in New York City and a 12-year old girl named Marita. It was a very interesting chapter that addressed how students in urban settings need longer school hours and need to dedicate themselves to hours and hours of homework a day. By doing this, 80% of KIPP students went to college.
Longer school hours and simulated academic environments at home or in the community would help motivate students. There are so many city students (even racial minorities in an suburan environment too) that lack the motivation of working at length on their reading, writing, and learning: things they do not enjoy or understand well. Since I work in an after school program, which provides these students with more academic help and support after school hours, it is tough to get them motivated. They dread having to do the work, and always state how they are tired from doing it in school all day. I believe the students have to have a deep drive like this young girl in the book Marita, but how do you create drive in 12-year old students? Maybe consistent positive mentors and life planning has something to do with it?
1 comment:
Hi Mrs. P, i think in order to stimulate any child, you need to break down the work, break it down to the point where they believe some of the hardest things are easy. I see it every day, people who think that homework like math reading and history are easy, are willing to it more offen. Ones that are not considered the smartest, dont try when it comes to hard work, because they feel that it's over their head. So all i'm saying is that, teachers are always saying that they are going to make it simple to learn, but their simple is at the level of the students that understand things easly. with the ones whom can't understand the lesson, they need to one on one, bring the lessons complexity to there level so they can say it's easy.
Chris Gamble CEO of Global Universal
(thats your first post!!!)
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