Cant Do, Won't Do

I gave a test to my Mythology class last week. It was a mix of identifications, multiple-choice questions, short-answer questions, and analogies. I allowed students to consult their textbooks and notes, and to take the test home if they needed extra time. In short, it was a very easy test. It was designed so that nobody could possibly fail it.

Eight out of 25 students failed the test. How does one fail an open-book, open-notes, untimed, take-home test?

Three of them got low scores. They have problems reading the textbook, or they didn't take good notes. Some of them lost points because they spelled names wrong, even though they had the textbook in front of them.

Call them the 'can't do' students. They're trying, but they just don't get it.

The other five got zeroes on the test because they didn't even turn it in. When I asked them why, they said they forgot to do it. They said they left it at home. They said they were too busy. Or they just shrugged, and said nothing at all. Call them the 'won't-do' students.

As teachers, we have a wide variety of tools, resources and strategies to help the can't-do students. We can tutor them after school, or try alternative forms of assessment. We ask each other for tips, lesson plans or projects or methods that have succeeded in similar situations. We call their parents and ask for help.

A lot of those parents are happy to cooperate. I had a student in last semester's freshman English class who came after school every Thursday to get extra help because his father ordered him to do it. He never loved English, and he ended up with a C-, but he was one of my favorite students.

It was a pleasure to stay late and help him because he was trying his best.

However, we have no idea what to do about the won't-do students.

After-school tutoring doesn't help, because they don't ask for it and don't come if you offer it. Alternative forms of assessment, like hands-on projects, don't do much good, either. I've had my Myth class put out a yearbook for Mount Olympus High School , with gods and goddesses playing the role of seniors. I've asked them to create movie treatments of love myths, updating the story to modern times and designing posters for their films.

The four students who didn't bother to turn in their Mythology tests got lousy grades on those projects, too. It's the same story -- minimal effort or no effort at all.

When I call the parents of these students, most of them promise to talk to their children about it. But I often hear resignation and despair: 'I can't do anything with her,' one parent told me. 'He's sixteen,' another said. 'It's his responsibility to do his work, not mine.'

I understand their resignation and despair, because sometimes I feel it, too. They're tired of slamming their heads into a brick wall of indifference. So am I. How easy it would be to stop asking why, to stop trying new ideas, to stop calling the parents. How easy it would be to just write the F on the top of the paper or test, record it in my gradebook, and enter it on the progress report or report card. How easy it would be to go from can't-do to won't-do.