pride
Often help is available: money,gas card, food but the students pride will not allow them to take help. What are some of the best ways to ease the students concerns and bolster pride and gain get them to take the support?
Deborah,
The individual attention and proactive actions will go a long way toward helping your students.
Jeffrey Schillinger
If I see a student starting to struggle I start with a note on their homework or quiz..."please see me"
The student is very willing to share the issue and I ask them to check in w me after the firsr hour and then after class. I also walk around and individually check their homework and spend a few minutes w each one them. Also offering tutoring is an option the student will consider.
Daniel,
This is not uncommon. We need to be proactive and get to students in a variety of ways, including telephone, email and text, if that is what it takes to establish two way communication.
Jeffrey Schillinger
Jeff, I have found this to be a big issue. Publically the students in need don't speak out in front of the class. I always bring up the possibility of help for those in need on the first day of class and give the students a clear invitation to stay after class to discuss their needs with me in private. The students in need seem to always leave after class then sneak back in so no other student knows about our conversation.
Thank you, Jeff.
In what ways do students exhibit "pride" that gets in their way?
I have found that the students who let their pripe stand in the way need to be spoken with individually and privatley. It also needs to be reinforced with them that any help they may ask for is confidential and will not be shared with others.
Kim,
Thanks for this post. You are right on target here. Some students, males typically, feel uncomfortable when asking for help or having someone do something for them. "Figuring it our together" is a great approach that you peers who read your post should fine very valuable.
Thank you for sharing this, Kim! This was a well thought out post.
I sort of got a bit off topic with my last post. What I was trying to communicate is to create an environment by talking with the student so that they see the action of "accepting help" more as an "action item" that helps them achieve their long-term goal in a way that keeps their pride intact. The "let's see what we can figure out together" approach has been helpful for us here. By sitting down with the student and "making a list" of things to do (some of which may include some help that may not otherwise be palatable) may help the more stubborn student see it as something they can "manage" and view the results of their efforts as something tangible by being able to actually mark it off a list, providing a sense of satisfaction. If you find a way to embed the "getting help - like a food assistance card or something" into an "overall" plan that includes something that doesn't seem like a hand-out, like for instance "work with supervisor to add hours to schedule" and/or "apply for competitive scholarship" that can benefit him via a line item on a resume or something demonstrating initiative in a cover letter. Or, using the same example: doing work for a local church in exchange for food pantry privileges - also can demonstrate community involvement etc.
Sometimes you have to be extra creative with this type of personality.
As a "baby boomer" I am surprised that so few of our students possess the "pride" to want to find ways to do for themselves.
I work at a career school whose student population is primarily male. We are located in a region that has experienced very, very difficult economic times of late. As a result, a significant cross section of our student body is of the 30-something through 40-something age group.
Many have come to me in tears due to utility shut-off, foreclosure, divorce due to strain, etc.
We have had to work extra hard to keep an updated resource/referral list available for such situations. The "younger" generation seems to have no qualms about asking for help well before helping themselves. Those I've described above seem to be more at a loss as to what to do than not doing something because of their pride. I notice many men (in particular) rely heavily on their female counterpart (mate, sister, mom, etc) to help them with the "administrative" side of life. Researching how to get help etc.
My staff and I have discovered through much trial and error that the modeling and mentoring (being available no matter what) enables us to be approachable for just this reason.
The accountability side: Absolutely! The "customer" will always remember the time you forgot or took too long to get back to them. It's easy to forget when help has arrived and the pressure is off. As an organization, we have found adding school survey questions that elicit such info from the students truly helps us to:
1. see if we are meeting expectations and,
2. insure if we have somehow dropped the ball (even if it's just the perception), we have a way to pick it up and close the loop.
Another huge key to accountability we have found is to insure our business hours meet the student's needs. It allows them to find us and us to keep up with them.
I think we're doing something right in this regard, because our school just received special commendation for "caring for our students."
I personally believe the reason for our success in this area lies in our strong "open door" policy and our willingness to stop what we are doing and help the student. Sometimes this means we physically accompany them to other departmental resources or even participate in a conference call with them and their utility company or their credit counseling agency, taking notes and making an action plan with them.
Good luck everyone!
Arthur,
I am not sure there is a great answer for your question. One thing might be to let students know they can repay the student fund when they are able. Another would be to try to identify ways a student in need can help others so that they will not feel guilty about accepting help.
