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I also struggle with frustration due to student apathy. I teach Freshman Comp. at a state university and I will probably have 5 or 6 students fail this semester because they cannot be bothered to attend class or to complete assignments.

My students, unlike most high schoolers (I used to teach 11th grade English) DO have their own opinions about some issues, but they don't believe that discussion and reflection is a worthwhile task. They don't believe that learning how to communicate effectively will have any impact on their lives. The same students who don't write their papers for my class spend much of their day text-messaging their friends! I do feel like I am fighting an uphill battle for their attention.  

Hello, I am not an English teacher myself, but I really like English. I just was reading your conversation and wanted to add that it is really hard as a student to learn and expand on your knowledge when class discussions go no where. I really like hearing everyone’s different perspectives and participating in a debate that helps everyone see every side of a character or theme in a material. I find it really frustrating when people are too lazy or to afraid to say what they are thinking so they just agree with everything you say. It bothers me a lot when people don’t put any effort into what they are working on. Lots of times people try and copy me, even opinion work! Then when I tell them No, they say stuff like, “Its okay! I will re arrange the words!” It just frustrates me so much! Especially since it is English! We speak this every day! I am not the best at English but at least I try hard! It ends up being that I get 110% on things because my teacher makes it worth less marks then she originally said so that kids are not failing. As far as I am concerned if you are not willing to do the work you should be willing to fail. Even though if affects the other people in your class when you don’t participate.

- TR

Clane:

I sub teach all over a single district, going from schools with 90% freelunch kids to schools with virtually no freelunch kids (socioeconmic factors) and I see the same apathy at all levels. As a sub, I am often left with directions to "show them a movie..."  Not good enough for me.  I also make them take notes, give them a few specific things to look for, tell them I need x-number of notes that I will be picking up...

This last is the tell: if I ask for 10 notes, that's where the majority of kids actually doing the assignment stop, whether they live in gov't housing and arrived on the public bus or a $900,000 house and were driven their by Mom, on her way to the club in her new Mercedes.  I'll ask them why they stopped and they'll say "you said 10, that's what I did."  I'll ask why they don't expand it, and themselves, and you'd think I asked them to extract a tooth for me, please. 

On the lower socioeconomic scale you have kids whose families generally (not always...I know some lower-income kids who bust their humps!) don't see any value in education.  On the upper side, you see kids whose families are going to buy their elfin' darlings way into the good life, and they know it, and so they offer at best, substandard attempts.

It does not bode well for our nation.

Tokie

Too many kids, by the time they've reached HS, have been thoroughly inclucated in this "spew-back" approach on the political end especially in American public schools.

They are expected to act like sheep, bleating after whatever is the en vogue social issue of the day--global warming, Darfur, hating Bush--and many have learned both from so many of their teachers and fellow students not to color outside some very narrowly defined lines. 

If you are a teacher who requires students to toe the line intellectually yourself in your own views on the world, don't complain. If not, maybe look into starting a semantics or debate club where real issues can be discussed openly and fairly in a safe environment?

Tokie 

My pet peeve is much like most who have posted. They want to be spoon-fed everything. I assign independent reading, and they come in and their only response is that they didn't "get" it. They want me to explain what is relevant, and why. It does drive me crazy. We have a generation of kids who do not read, and therefore they have limited vocabularies and no patience to read.

I don't know if I'm glad or if I'm depressed to find out that you all are having the same problems and getting the same tired excuses that I get. I think the truth is that the students just don't want to do anything--period. Maybe we need a totally new form of education: implant chips in each newborn's brain that will give them internet access to all the knowlegdge in the world. Don't you know there'd be some kids who would think that's too hard?!

Just like everyone else, I have been trying to overcome student apathy as well. I tried to create a more engaging research assignment last year, hoping that more kids would get excited about it. Instead of literary topics, they were asked to research a career that they may be interested in after high school. They had to approach it from all sides: tasks, educational requirements, skills needed, best and worst aspects in their opinion. They thought it was great, until they realized it was still work! They needed book and internet sources, and they had to interview someone in the field. Also proper citation and bibliography were required. Although I think it was more engaging to many, for some it was as if I was asking them to defy gravity.

I have to laugh at all the comments on apathy.  I waged a War on Apathy just two months ago in my senior English classes - complete with banner and all.  It helped some, and I did receive some positive feedback from the students.... on The Great Gatsby of all books!

I think though that we can't talk about apathy without commenting on enabling.  Students have been so enabled - so catered today - in the past 10/20 years that they have no reason to care.  Someone will get them through, someone always has... why should they put effort and interest into the classroom?  Until society begins demanding that students are responsible for their success - and not that teachers are the only culpable ones - it will continue.

In reply to #18: I would love to hear more about your War on Apathy.  What did you do (besides the banner and posters)?  How did it engage the students?  I'm ready to engage in battle myself!

In reply to #18:

You are SO right in that students have been enabled beyond belief.  They've gotten used to being spoonfed and catered to and they simply don't want to do their own work.  They want someone to do it for them.  This has been a huge topic of discussion in my division as of late.