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Context Versus Content When Teaching the "Unteachable"Finding ways to engage students in learning is the ultimate goal of anyone involved in the education process--parents, teachers, administrators, and publishers alike. Children can have access to the highest-quality learning tools available, but this means nothing if they aren't interested. Researchers have conducted hundreds of focus groups, surveys, and controlled observations on the subject, but the simplest solution often remains the most difficult to address--finding ways to cater to the needs of each student individually. Teacher and author Erin Gruwell has experienced firsthand the difficulties this entails and will share her advice as a featured speaker at the 2005 AEP Educational Publishing Summit. In 1993, Gruwell was a young student teacher at Woodrow Wilson High on Long Beach, California. The students at Wilson were desensitized to the hate and violence that had become part of their everyday lives. They took one look at the young, naïve Gruwell and placed bets on how long she would last. These were students who had been labeled by school administrators as "unteachable." In their own words: "we hated school, we hated our teacher, and we hated each other." But Gruwell would not be put off. She continued to search for ways to reach her students. "I just knew that in order to build a relationship with students, you have to first build a foundation of trust and respect and understanding of where you come from," she said. She found that the best way to reach her kids was speak to their personal experiences, and she did that by relating their stories of violence and poverty to those of Anne Franke and teen diary-writer Zlata Filipovic of Bosnia. Soon, her students were writing their own diaries, staying after school--sometimes until eleven at night--to finish up journal entries about gang violence, race wars, and class differences. Gruwell had engaged them, and not just in reading in writing. Most of her students showed marked improvements in all of their other classes as well. All 150 of them went on to graduate high school and most went on to earn college and graduate degrees. Her success with these so-called "unteachable" students proves that creating new content is not always the key to reaching reluctant learners; it's the context in which the content is presented that counts the most.
Questions, ideas, or in need of more information? Please contact Stacey Pusey at 302-295-8349. |
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