@Chloe The History class conundrum is a hard one, just because it is high school and students no doubt have more than just your class work to contend with. So, with that pressure, I’m not sure what advice I’d give as our approach here at my school is quite holistic and cuts across all learning areas. The concept of “failing” because of missed homework assignments isn’t really an issue for us here either, especially as we’ve been looking at evidence that says homework doesn’t effectively contribute to learning. I think that it would be hard to implement in just one class but would need to be a whole school or at least a whole faculty approach.

@Kelsey It’s the responsibility and accountability for oneself that scares a lot of students – but if schools don’t try to actively foster some sort of independence for student learning, how else will they achieve it? Even if they don’t like it, it needs to happen. Spoon feeding them plays back into the old model of sit down, shut up and then do good on the test.

I’m a preservice high school teacher who has been in the same history classes for the whole year thus far, and we have a handful of kids who appear to me to be “lifelong learners” in the sense that they are engaged and interested in everything in class, but who are not particularly motivated to complete homework assignments. A few of them are failing the class, despite the fact that I can tell they are pretty interested in US History and contribute to discussions… it’s simply that they never complete assignments that are assigned as homework. I suppose this is as much a problem of motivation as being a “lifelong learner,” but I was impressed that you said you could see a noticeable shift among your students and am wondering if there are strategies you have used in promoting student accountability for their work.

You mention a handful of key words in this post that really resonate:
-onus
-initiative
-ownership
and while some may cite this one as a bit glib:
-life-long learning

I’ve been party to faculty diatribes about the clear absence of these traits in the student population, but I’ve also been privy to the dearth of aforementioned traits in teachers.

I’m glad that your school is noticing a subtle shift in each student’s role in his/her own learning, and that the learning that you seem to be focusing on is less content-related, and more a focus on (here I go) ‘life-long’ skills.

But if teaching staffs refuse to adapt and evolve, then I’m left feeling exceptionally worried and deflated.

Your post shines a light on the fact that too many educators enter the classroom and continue to practice their craft as if the acquisition of a teaching certificate is the lesser-known 11th commandment – a fixed edict that demands no adaptation on the part of the teacher; instead, just a tireless Sisyphean adherence for the duration of one’s career.

We all need to practice learning.

This is a most interesting topic around my small slice of educational heaven, and recently, the topic of discussion during lunch.