Blog # 16 - Raising Student Morale

As staff at a middle school, we have been talking about how low our staff morale is. Teachers are complaining about all the meetings, the new curriculum that is is not working the way they thought it would be, the new curriculum is great but it takes much more time to prep for a lesson everyday, and the lack of support by our administration. We don't listen to how the students are feeling.

As winter started to approach, I heard more 8th graders complaining about teachers, homework, tests/quizzes, and activities; my room is located at the mouth of one of the 8th grade pods and all of them pass by my room. I never started to think that when I am getting stressed and overloaded that the students might also be more stressed and overloaded. The more I thought of when the teachers started to voice their opinion's about things, so did the students.

It seems that the district is very concerned with poor teacher morale and how to improve it but do not seemed very concerned with poor student morale and ways to improve it. For us teachers, our administrators will buy us lunch during school PD's/conferences, promote teacher games (i.e. staff basket ball games played before the students), and give us different treats within the day. But what is done for the students to help improve their morale with their school.

My school has taken some baby steps to get their students to participate within their own pods, improve their morale, and improve their achievement of their students. This last month our students leadership has created a contests with each house to see who can decorate it the best for the holidays. The winner will get a pizza party. Everyday after school, you see students working together to create winter wonderlands. They are laughing and having a good time. The next day, you get to see them admire their work and grin when the teachers tell them how good it looks. In each DT (Discovery Time) classes within the pods students were able to voice their opinions on a field trip or activity that they are going to participate in next week. One pod had a pancake breakfast for their students one morning. It was amazing, that day all 150 students were there for breakfast. Since they started to do some of these little things, I do not hear as much grumbling between the students and the staff. It has made some of these cold days more bearable.

I am wondering what your schools do to help student improve their morale?

Blog #15

When I just went to my Blogs, my number 15 was not there. I have had some difficulty with my computer the last few weeks. So here is my 15.

My brother was the student in high school 20+ years ago who would have a learning difficultly in reading. He always struggled when it came to reading any material; he was a slow reader and would struggle with all the rules of the English lang. He did enroll at NDSU and completed 3.5 years of college but dropped out (he never declared a major). When he was there, his grades were A-C's. I asked him why he would drop out, he had decent grades. His response was, I struggled everyday at class and could not keep up; Michelle (his girlfriend at the time) would do the work in a few classes for him. My brother works in the construction field and is great at what he does. He is a hands on learner and when he learns something, he never forgets it. Eric never had a teacher in elementary, junior high, or high school take time to figure out the best way he learned; he struggled in school. Eric is taking a three week course at a community college for three different certification for construction (one week is wind, one week is solar, one week is something else) He is worried that even though he has these certificates, it will not be enough for him to get the better job without a college degree. I tired to re-assure him that it is not just a college degree that people do look for, but how you "sell" yourself in an interview, and your portfolio. He is stressed that he is doing this for nothing that employers will not consider him for a job because he does not have that paper that says he completed a degree.

My question for you as educators is how do we get those students ready for the "real" world who are college bound or even community college bound. We tell our students that they should go to college, that they need that degree to get a job, but what about those students like my brother? College is not for all. Some students need to go straight to work for different reason; some because they need to make money for their family and other like my brother, college was not for them. Should these people be punished of not being able to move up at their job, or apply for and hired for a job that they can do but don't have a degree in? Some of the my friends are extremely intelligent and do not have a degree while other who do have degree are not as smart as they think they are. Degree's (in my opinion) do not equal brains.