Distractions in our Students' Learning
This article that I recently read has helped me to better understand the constant distractions that we as parents often unknowingly let into or are unaware that are taking place in the lives of our students. It's difficult enough when a common trait among any student at any age is to turn 20 minutes of homework into a three hour battle of avoidance and frustration that we has parents often find difficult to manage and handle at the end of a busy day. Hopefully, you will find the humor and also reflect on the specific behaviors that your own student may represent. Remember, each age has its own coping strategies, for avoiding homework and being distracted. Sometimes it simply starts with having a pen or a pencil available. Perhaps, as parents, you will harken back to an earlier time regarding your own distractions or battles to avoid school work. I hope you enjoy the following conversations as they seem applicable to all of us;
There are few places other than a school where unsharpened pencils, paper clips on the floor, a stray line on a white board, or a misspoken word, even if it's obviously inadvertent, would warrant the scrutiny of an archaeological dig or the interrogation of a grand jury.
Rarely does a period or lesson go by without a small forest of unsharpened pencils rising in the air at the beginning of the period or lesson and marching to the sharpener, several students seeking to borrow a pen or pencil, and one or two asking to go to the bathroom, to the nurse or to their locker.
On the first day of school, one teacher noted that four students came to class without pens or pencils, and they had stacks of forms to fill out. How does that happen?
When students do get their hands on pencils and pens, the writing instruments vanish at physics-defying rates in the few hundred feet between classrooms, sucked into some black hole, like the one in the dryer that claims one sock.
The obliviousness to everyday life is not confined to classroom supplies. On a sub-zero day when the wind made eyes water and skin ache, some students sauntered between buildings without coats, despite the pleas of teachers, insisting, "I don't need one." And yes, a few were wearing shorts.
NURTURING & MATURING BRAINS FOR ALL STUDENTS AT ALL LEVELS
Teachers have learned to cope with individual students quirks, especially at the middle level. In the cases of bathroom and nurse requests, teachers stall. They ask students to try to wait until the end of the period, or if they say they are not feeling well, and there are no obvious signs of illness or injury, teachers suggest they sit down for a few minutes and see if their head, stomach, or whatever still hurts. Sometimes it works.
As to why 12-and 13-year-olds are distraction magnets oblivious to everyday necessities (like pencils and coats) staff members and adminsitrators have different views, some involving physiology, society, or both.
"The distractibility and lack of organization are partially due to an underdeveloped frontal lobe [in the brain]," says one principal. "The sense of organization is not yet there. Their priorities are not yet developed. I've seen it at all three schools, elementary, mddle and high school. I've worked in all three levels and it can be frustrating to work with each age level. They need constant and daily reminders."
To help train those developing frontal lobes, an expert recommends stressing to students that it is important and fun to be organized. "In the beginning, you give them the pencil. But you also help them develop skills and find ways to help them remember the pencil. There needs to be a reason for kids to remember."
INTERNAL & EXTERNAL PULLS
Middle school youngsters at this age may be more susceptible to distractions because they have not yet developed sufficient self-control. "I think it's because they are self-focused," continues one teacher, "They don't often see how the things they do affect other people."
Another staff member can't explain how students lose pens and pencils so quickly. "When I see pens or pencils on the floor, I pick them up and put them in a cup on my desk," he says. "I can't tell you how many kids come in and look at the cup and say, 'Hey, that's my pencil!'"
To make sure she gets her pens and pencils back, one staff member insists that those who borrow pens or pencils from he,r list their names on the board and return them before the end of the period.
The forces pulling at youngsters in society and at home also can contribute to their distractibility, some said. "They are just so overwhelmed with life; the clothes, the video games, and the music, that they have a hard time taking it down a notch," observes a math teacher. "There are just too many distractions."
Still another teacher adds that all the electronic devices available to students have brought new diversions. "They are multi-tasking at a younger age. I could never listen to music and type, but they have no problem doing that. They have the attention span of about a 30-minute program."
Combine those with expanding social lives, and schools can become a low priority. "Keeping track of pens is just not important to them," says one language arts teacher. "They are more concerned about having cool shoes, clothes or recent conversation as learning is just not that important."
Some, though, wonder if adults help students too much. "Adult expectations have been lowered," says one special education teacher. "Kids are the same. Adult expectations of them have been lowered. We do too much and not enough well."
Still another teacher states that, "We do enable them a little; we supply them with pencils, but at the same time, they need the tools to do their job," he says. "I give them the ones I pick up from the floor and put on a box on my desk. It's a progression of becoming responsible".
Persistence can make all the difference for each age group, says one staff member. "It [the forgetful behavior] could be belligerence, but you can't let it get to you at each grade level," she says. "You have to do what it takes to make them and help them learn."
