retention through caring
I have seen recently a lot of students coming in and from the start have no focus and start the slippery road to poor attendence and failure right from the start. We work with these students as much as we can through mentoring coaching and whatever customer skills we can muster. You show as much as you can that you care through action not just words but the line to following the SOP's needs to be maintained. I have heard many of the students complain that not enough of the student body are held to a high standard. Caring does not mean to be lienient. It means having the courage to hold ourselves and the students to the highest standards.
Thanks for your thougtful post. Too often we as educators get caught up in the subject matter we are "teaching" our student and we do not see that simply pushing more inforamtion towards them will not result in an understanding of the material. If the student is too stressed or preoccupied in another part of their life to devote time to studying the material, no amount of pushing on our part will help them succeed. Instead we need to stop, listen and care about them as a person. The reief of their burden may result in a new ability to grasp the educational material.
Thanks, Warren.
A key in dealing with issues like this is to focus on the behavior first, letting the student know why it is inappropriate. Try not to focus on the student when identifying a behavior issue.
Second, focus on the student's goals and help the student to recognize the impact of the behavior on his or her ability to reach those goals.
The third step is to help the student identify the correct behaviors and allow the student to take action to get back on the right path.
You show you care by addressing the situation and helping the student to come up with the answers. That being said, there may be times when safety is an issue or when the student is keeping others from learning. Students sometimes have to be asked to leave for the good of the other students. The discussions can come later.
I have been in a similar situation many times. Often when a student's behavior is inappropriate, I have flat out asked "why are you acting like this"? The answers you get often make you realize that their poor performance has nothing to do with your subject matter in your course. They have other life issues that outweigh good academics at school. A sympathetic ear with suggestions for issue resolution go a long way.
Phillip,
Thank you for this post. I was lucky enough to have had good, caring individuals in my life that treated me in the same way you responded this student's needs. That is the type of action that makes career colleges special places to attend school.
You make a good point that you are not a professional counselor. You listened and cared. That is all it takes sometimes.
It is important for all members to the college team to have available lists of community resources that are students can contact when they need more services than we are able to provide. Some colleges actually contract with national services to provide counseling, community referrals and legal services to their students.
I recently had a student that came into class crying, and she told me that she had personal problems at home. I asked if there was anything I could do, and basically she opened up to me and told me what was going on that hurt her so. While I do not claim to be a counselor and told her that, I did offer some basic life lessons learned from my own life and gave her some ideas on how to approach the problem. During that the next few days she told me that she'd taken my advice and she had resolved some of the problems that were troubling her. At the end of the course I asked her how things were going with her and she told me that things had worked out for the good, and thanked me for taking the time to care. It seems that so many of us are too busy to stop for a minute to care, and our students see that. This student may have been to the point of quitting, but is continuing on with a more positive outlook due to one person's caring and listening.
I do agree that caring does not mean that you are leinient- although it is a fine line at times. I think that you must maintain a certain distance with students or employees so that you can be objective and continue to be viewed in a leadership or authoritative role. I personally have to watch my boundaries so that I do not nurture more than I monitor!
Mark,
I couldn't agree more with you. Negative behavior get so much attention. We need to focus on the students that display positive behavior.
Attention = Retention. I could not agree more. As a former student myself, I do believe a little attention does go a long way. Also, student tutors help students learn at their own level. Carol Ridgley
Mark,
Some very good points here. Everyone has an off day now and then. We must be careful and show the same amount of attention to all students. This is where student tutors are great.
I believe we need to make sure there is a balance between caring and lienience. There are students that will follow every rule to the letter, but at some point may have an off day. We should not treat that student the same as the student who is constantly not following the rules. Not to say the good students incorrect action should be ignored, the student needs to know we are monitoring them.
Also I have had some of the better students make comments to the affect of "no one pays attention to you if your doing well". It seems more important to make it look like the better students get more attention to make them another model for the less then perfect students to want to follow.
Anthony,
Very good point! Caring does mean being accountable and making sure others are accountable.
