Giving students the tools to succeed

I have been reading with interest the articles on our education system in Manitoba, starting with Grant Park removes advanced-placement-test due to student stress (April 29); Getting beyond just grading and tests (Think Tank, May 6); Grading by percentage is failing our students (Think Tank, May 7); and The importance of quality of assessment for students (Think Tank, May 12).

They all made me think, which is the sign of a good article. I learned that from my educators: to think for myself.

One of the articles stressed that percentages should be removed from schools due to student stress.

They advocate that no tests, no grades, and just anecdotal comments will better serve students’ needs. If this is what is happening in public schools today, I despair.

This rhetoric does not teach young people anything about striving for goals, or about having faith in their own ability to learn.

This type of thinking explains so much about the students I see in my first-year university classes. Students who can’t take constructive criticism, who bristle at instruction, and who don’t bother reading the grading rubrics before completing assignments.

They hand in anything that they have written at the last minute and expect an A because they submitted the assignment.

They come to see me at the end of the term telling me that they now have all of their late assignments ready and are wondering how to submit them.

When I explain that they can’t, they become defensive and wonder why, if it was acceptable in high school, I won’t accept them now.

They consistently miss classes and instruction and then want special treatment because they are stressed.

As a former colleague of mine at the University of Winnipeg told his students, if they aren’t stressed at university, then they aren’t trying. Life is stressful and it starts at school. Students have to know how to deal with stress when they are on their own.

It’s part of life to deal with situations that do not always go as planned.

What happens if the sports team they try out for cuts them, if the university they apply to turns them down, if the technical college says there is no room in the course they want to take, or if they fail an assignment?

Will they give up?

Unfortunately, many do, because they have never had to face adversity before due to no consequences for their actions.

Students need to learn how to cope with stress or they will curl up into a ball and hope someone else will rescue them when faced with challenges, rather than figuring it out for themselves. We can’t keep them wrapped up in bubble wrap, hoping that life will be kind to them.

It won’t be.

How many businesses will keep an employee on their payroll who constantly asks for extensions on projects, who whines when told their work is not acceptable and they must redo it, or who thinks that using AI for everything is appropriate even if it includes incorrect information?

We have a whole cohort of students who don’t know how to think for themselves and who trust social media influencers over facts. Is this what our educational dollars are funding?

I know detractors will say that not every student wants to go on to post-secondary education. I agree, which is why streaming is a wonderful way to prepare those students who do want to go on to university so they are armed with the skills they need to succeed.

And, for those students who want to pursue a different path after high school, they should at the very least be armed with the ability to write coherently, to be able to think for themselves, and to understand that they have to work for their goals and not expect to be handed them without any effort.

Those of us in education need to do better and it starts in kindergarten. We need to tell students they can learn and then give them the tools to learn.

We need to explain that learning is hard work but if they put in the time, they can be successful. We need to make them strive to be their very best whatever that means for each student and reward them for moving forward.

As I tell my students, if they leave my classroom with more confidence in their thinking and writing abilities than they had before they entered, then I have done my job. How many teachers have goals for their students and themselves?

Let’s all work together for the future of not only our students but for society at large.

L. K. Soiferman is an instructor in the department of rhetoric at the University of Winnipeg.