Do you regret not working harder at school?

[millyrainbow]

I work as a teacher in a secondary school with pupils who were assessed as average at primary school but have since been slipping behind and not reaching their full potential. One of the problems I have encountered are students who find learning maths and English totally pointless. I have tried to reason with them explaining that as adults they will need these skills to do all sorts of things from to budgeting for a weekly shop to reading their children a bedtime story, not to mention the trouble they could have finding and maintaining a job they enjoy. They are not students who can't but students who won't.
Does anyone have any real life stories I could share with them that could strengthen my case in demonstrating how important maths and English skills are?
Many Thanks

I never tried at all in maths because it never came easy to me and becaue my self esteem had been damaged by a terrible teacher in primary.

Luckily, in secondary my English and Art teachers were fantastic....but as far as everything else was concerned I never tried at all.

I felt that the subjects I liked were the ones I was good at and so I would put all my efforts into them.

Some kids cn only give a certain amount....they can't spread their efforts too thinly. I shone with A* in my 2 fave subjects and got terrible marks in all of the others.

I was ok...because I did an acting degree at an accredited college with very little written work. But in the cases of those kids who don't seem motivated to work...maybe its a case of encouraging them to think what kind of jobs they could get which enable them to get paid for doing what they enjoy.

So the girl who wants to watch TV all day....encourage her into media....so she can.

Nothing is out reach...even without qualifications....well...unless we're talking doctors and lawyers!

milly, if they were average at primary, wouldn't their reading already be perfectly adequate for reading a bedtime story to any potential children, and their maths already be good enough to handle money and budget when they need to?

I also agree with Liluri that it is misleading to imply that if they don't get loads of qualifications, they won't get a job. No wonder young people are so negative. If everyone worked fantastically hard at school and got all the qualifications they could possibly get, the labour market would still be the same and not everyone will have a job they enjoy. By all means, explain that the better they do, the more options they have. However, as they are average pupils, they are not that likely have high flying professional careers.

At the moment you are best dealing what is relevant to everyday life, and being able to communicate in writing with correct punctuation is something that everyone should aim for. In terms of finding maths pointless; beyond a basic level, it is not relevant to many careers but it is absolutely essential for others. By teaching every class the full curriculum, you are keeping these options open. I wonder how they would feel if the school decided it was not worth teaching them maths as they are unlikely to have a career that needs it.

'As for the full stops thing... get them to write a script, just a short conversational bit, and get them to act it out reading it without full stops in a continuous monotonous stream of words. See if the rest of the class can make sense of what they're saying. That's what I think puctuation adds, all the emphasis and fluidity of conversation. The hand waving and gesturing you can't put on a page.'

It would be best to get the culprits to swap their work in order to achieve this. It they are reading their own, they are very likely to read it as if the puntuation was there, even though it isn't, because they know what it is meant to say. I will add here that even the most basic puntuation is extremely difficult for some people.

in response to original OP,
No! I worked my socks in school and got the grades to show for it

I've currently got a girl in my form who doesn't want a job at all or to go into further education when she leaves at 16. She wants 'to sit at home watching tv like her older brother'.

I enjoy TV as much as the next person but the idea of watching it all day, even at my age, leaves me cold. You could ask her what would happen if everyone took her attitude - if everyone stayed at home all day, there would be no TV programmes to watch!

I wonder how their mother will feel about supporting 2 children doing this. While the state gives unemployed young people a small amount of benefits which are supposed to help pay towards their keep, many parents let there adult children keep this as pocket money, so they then have little incentive to try to find work.

As an aside, a friend who worked as a DSS officer in the days when they did home visits, was asked to settle an argument between a mother and daughter about how much of her benefit the daughter should pay towards her keep. Whilst the daughter was eagerly looking for him to back her case, he referred to the book on how benefits are calculated and gave a sum that was far more than the mother had asked for. The crestfallen look on her face gave him a great deal of satisfaction.

I went to a school reunion recently and met a lot of people who had serious regrets about not trying harder at school and really felt they let themselves down in not achieving their true ability. And that this had been something that was difficult to change and catch up on in later life.

A lot of these people were the cool kids in school and in the in-crowd. I never envisaged them feeling regret on that front so it was really interesting. Many of them also talked about problems at home that were going on at the same time so I do wonder how much of that was a factor.

For my part, I never tried hard at maths/physics/chemistry at school and wasn't that good at it. I just couldn't for the life of me see what relevance it would have in my future life. Maybe it was dull teaching or maybe it was just me, I'm not sure.

Now that I'm older I see more of science/maths in every day life and am interested when I go the Science Museum etc

So it seems to me one of the key is making it relevant to every day life.

But it hasn't affected me in terms of having a career I love (which is media based) and so no real regrets about it.

I certainly worked hard enough, but mainly on things that were outside the school curriculum- learning more French and English than could possible be required by the school, taking up Latin and Greek several years in advance, reading more history than my history teacher had probably done. I do not regret any of the learning I actually did and it has been valuable for my professional life (which I had decided on quite early on). But I do wish I had taken more pains to work on some subjects that would have been educational even if less useful for my particular path in life: it would be nice to know more about maths and physics and chemistry. I got good enough marks and can do enough maths for everyday life, but I don't feel very knowledgeable.

I went from being the best in the class at a selective girls' grammar school to distinctly average because of... boys. I went rather bananas in the sixth form and I now wonder why no one - parents, teachers - said anything to me. I did barely a stroke of work and didn't even read the A Level English set books as I was too busy with other activities! I went to a good university, but I know I could have done so much better if could only turn back the clock.

You know how the people who say "Money doesn't buy you happiness" are rarely the ones struggling to put food on the table? Well I think this might be a similar issue, maybe it's easier to look back and think you wish you'd had more chilled out fun if you have achieved the high standards you aimed for.

Personally I wish I'd had the courage to aim a little higher. I did well at school, went to uni and have professional qualifications but have always kept my head below the parapet and not had the confidence to aim higher than I thought I would reasonably easily achieve. I could have followed different paths if I'd had the confidence to try them.

I've always told my children that education and qualifications do not automatically get you anywhere in life but they open the doors for you to get to the places where you can prove yourself. Hopefully that seems to be working so far!

NO.

But I regret not having had more enthusiastic and inspirational teaching (wouldn't have been hard - girls grammar in the 70's, but stuck in the 1950's) apart from my lovely French A'level teachers.

Oh, and not taking English because I hated my O'level English teacher

I don't want to sound like a girlie swot, but from the other side of the coin I did work hard at school, and because I did I got to go to a very good university, work not quite so hard and have a lot of fun, and meet DH. I now have a pretty good job and nice things. I wouldn't have those nice things if I hadn't worked hard at school.

I worked hard at school. I do slightly regret my choice of A Levels (more specifically doing Chemistry - should have not done it at all rather than doing it at university, seeing as it was my worst subject). Should have focused on Physics which I was better at anyway and done one fewer A Level. And then done Physics at university.

But I'm not really answering the OP at all.

I regret not working harder. I worked enough - I got into the university of my choice - but I didn't do as well as I should have done. I suppose it doesn't matter to anyone except me, really. I would have liked to have persevered more with maths, physics and computer programming because I find those subjects difficult. I wasn't very resilient.

I read somewhere that teenagers in general have problems understanding long-term consequences - it's to do with their stage of brain development or something.

I'm a teacher now and there are some kids who are almost unreachable. I have one boy at the moment who is 15 years old and is determined to join the army. He has really low self confidence for a number of reasons and has styled himself as a 'bad boy' so he's not interested in doing well at school. Even in exams he won't write anything. His literacy and numeracy are very poor and I worry about him. He is a sweet boy at times and I wish I could help him more but I'm pretty limited in what I can do, unfortunately.

In my experience it isn't future consequences that motivate most children - it's what's happening NOW. Almost all children are motivated by success in a subject - they all want to do well, even if they don't show it! The boy above has, at times, been very motivated to learn about poetry, of all things, because he had some early success with it. Of course that backfired slightly because he refused to do any other work (bless 'im), but it made him feel good for a little while and gave me something to build on.

If they understand how good it can feel to learn something then they'll go on to learn on their own later. Teach a man to fish etc.

It bothers me as well that anything below a C is regarded as a failure, even by teachers. I've heard some people say 'oh, x is never going to get a C anyway'. A D can be a real accomplishment for some children and it does demonstrate a level of ability in the subject. But why bother trying if the best you can get is a fail?

Do you remember a thread a while ago where someone asked what advice would they give their 15 year old self, and one of the most common answers was 'I wish I hadn't titted around at school and chased boys but had actually listened to the teachers....'

It's also instructive how many MNetters who are in dire straights- no prospects, unemployed, in debt etc etc who perhaps don't or won't make the link between shutting up, listening and even, in several cases, attending school with their adult predicament...

And yes, eggs I understand where you're coming from re:grades. There's a thread on MN right now where someone decries the 'failure' of teachers for 'accepting' that some of their pupils will 'only' get a C, demanding to know why they aren't insisting on an 'A'...perhaps because that DC is only capable of a 'C'? That a C represents that DC's very best??! And that 'predicting' an A for that DC dooms them to 'failure'?

Not at school as I did well but at university.
I was young when I went and too immature for the freedom. I got a third, could have done better (am no genius but should have got a 2-2 or a 2-1 if I'd stretched myself) and feel my grade is my dirty little secret. I don't ever lie in job applications but I don't draw attention to it.

And agree the problems of students who have no ambition (and by ambition I don't just mean aiming for CEO of a company, but students who have no desire to do anything in employment) is much deeper than simply more interesting lessons. These are the young people who go on to be teen parents and NEETs, the ones who can't see a future for themselves.

Hey, erebus, if you're after making that sort of sneery judgmental comment about someone, have the chin to say their name, eh?

Erebus I believe if you are capable of a C you are capable of an A, certainly in GCSEs. These are only entry level qualifications after all. A teacher I spoke to recently decided her son had reached his ability ceiling at grade B and that's all he could hope for in GCSE as he just wasn't terribly bright. Everyone can get incrementally 'better' with great teaching, finding a different way of looking at a problem, working harder etc.

I coasted until university doing the bare minimum so yes I wish I had made more effort.

From 4th year secondary onwards I worked pretty hard and have no regrets about being a swot. I could relax and party once I got to university, plus then was living away from my parents and sensible enough to sort out contraception.

I coasted at uni too, but I don't regret it. I had a ball and still got a 2:1

Anyway, no-one cares what level degree you got, never mind O or A levels when you are as old as me

I totally agree, Cortina - but I think that some students might take longer to reach the standard required for an A in the time allowed by the GCSE course. I know lots of kids who worked very hard to get Cs but however hard they worked they wouldn't have got A's at 16 years old. Maybe a year or two later, but not at 16.

I regret having no direction. For five yrs of high school I wanted a scientific/technical career, then I failed Physics, and everything I had wanted to do was off limits, then I went in another direction and chose the uni subject I had been good at in school, and did English. Did nothing with my degree. Wish I'd gone straight to work at 18.

Cursed with being "good at everything". Dd is turning out just like me, I really hope she usefully pigeonholes herself in terms of career aspirations nice and young. Mind you hopefully dd is more self-assured, not having had the nightmare divorced parents upbringing I had.