"We sit too much" and other observations of a teacher-turned-student

In sociology today, we read this blog post about a teacher who shadowed a high school student on a block schedule. To "hook" for our discussion on the value of participant observation research, we discussed student takeaways from this article. 

One takeaway was that they really wanted teachers to read it, so I promised to share it with the faculty as well as some of the notes from our discussion. The student input was interesting!

Student takeaways - relatively unedited:

• The shadowing teacher really got tired from all that sitting.
• Most teachers don't realize rolling their eyes or having sarcastic replies can shut a student down.

• I hate it when teachers are sarcastic and make me feel stupid just for asking a question. 

• Sometimes teens get called "moody" because we need more sleep but it isn't always taken seriously by adults - we have stress and get tired too
• Students listen for 90% of the time, which was very hard on the shadowing teacher
• We get told school is our job but then we are told to go get a job if we want money...so we really have two jobs

• Teachers work hard but students work harder

• We are told we are cowards for not asking questions, but then when we ask questions we are yelled at for not knowing something
• College is treated as so much of an obligation today so we just see how much longer we'll be in school...it makes high school even harder to endure sometimes 
• Students need to move around more and not sit for so long
• At the end of the day students feel a "bad" tired, not a productive tired
• Teachers spend so much time complaining about losing class time with the new [block] schedule that they aren't teaching when they complain
• I'm usually too tired to even do homework
• She wondered how much info she actually understood and absorbed, despite the constant flow of information

• Most of the day is spent absorbing the info and not grappling with it

• Teachers forget you have six or seven subjects and yours isn't my favorite so I'm not always my best
• We really sit a lot and it is exhausting. I'm glad the shadow realized it.
• She realized how exhausting each day is for us
• She did not know being a student is so tiring - she felt bad about asking questions because teachers would act sarcastic
• Students like when teachers ask for teacher evaluations
• She was so exhausted after 1 day of school, she went home and did nothing. We have homework, extracurriculars, jobs, etc.
• Students absorb info without active engagement, which prob causes the tiredness
• When there is a mistake on a test and we try to point it out, teachers tell us "it's no big deal, it's just one question", or they seem embarrassed because they want to be right all the time

• Teachers sometimes take our grades as their own value, so if we fail it's like they failed somehow

• It would be helpful in some classes to start by getting our questions answered before covering new material - and making it a norm so we feel comfortable asking questions.
• Many people don't realize what is included in high school. It's not the easiest thing to endure daily!
• After being laughed at or mocked, students are afraid to ask questions.
• Not only are we tired at the end of the school day, we also have things we have to be alert for after school.

We all know teenagers don't get enough sleep, so if you have a teenager, take that phone away after 10 PM and let's do our best to help them rock high school!