Angela Watson's Truth For Teachers

Do you feel like self-advocacy among students is a pervasive problem? As in, if students don’t know what to do, they won’t ask questions or seek out more information … they’ll just sit there and do nothing. If something is challenging, they don’t seem to be interested in improving their skills, or learning for the sake of learning. They just give up.  In response to this, many teachers feel like they have to work harder than their students are working. They have to keep going the extra mile to make lessons personalized and engaging and put all these additional supports and interventions in place to help students be successful, all while many of their students are doing the bare minimum. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years exploring this phenomenon, and why it’s becoming more and more common. The more that I learn about student disengagement, the more I am convinced that the solution is NOT to put the onus on teachers to make their lessons more engaging and personalized. An amazing lesson isn’t go