Being Unreasonable

More of us should be like this guy... Paul the Cell Phone Salesman. If you click on the link, you'll see his two-minute video from Britain's Got Talent. If you click here, you can watch an interview with him and see another performance.

Paul Potts is an amazing example of "being unreasonable" about talent and ambition.
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I'm about three-quarters of the way through Be Unreasonable, and just hit a section on accountability. After the numerous conversations had today and this past Friday about late work and make-up exams, I'm spending extra time reading and pondering that part.

Not so much because I need to make my students accountable (they need to make themselves accountable), but so much more because I need a more accurate picture of who I am in terms of accountability. Perhaps looking at my own approach will show me new ways to help them refine theirs.

At the same time, interestingly, I'm bucking the accountability concept. A conversation last week revealed that corporate wants each of us teachers to evaluate ourselves and then, in a chat with our individual supervisors, talk about what we can "do better" to improve retention in our classroom.

A fellow teacher, knowing my increasing tendency to speak up, asked what I was "going to do" about this.

What will I do? The unreasonable, of course.

I plan to talk about how I'm constantly trying to teach problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. (Which often explains my love-hate reputation.) This is how I look at it: if my students have those skills, their attendance might just improve because, when problems arise, they will be better able to find the necessary solutions and make the necessary decisions to make it through the term academically intact.

This is as opposed to the tendency of some students to solve academic problems by just not coming to class. Some students get so overwhelmed that they "shut down" and take the easy way out, which is not showing up and flunking. Their fear of being wrong runs deeper then many of us educators can fathom; it's so much a part of their nature, believe it or not, that an "F" due to non-attendance is actually acceptable to a "D" earned via the game of academic catch-up.

This approach of mine, I need to add, contradicts the "duct tape solutions" such as edu-taining presentations, homework passes, and bonus point-related rewards for showing up to attend a class that you paid to attend in the first place. Yes, they work in the short-run. I know that. But the short-run short-changes in the long run.

I'll keep you posted.

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P.S.
Thanks to Free Frank Warner, a recently discovered blog which gave me the background and had the Paul Potts pic, as well as thanks to Chuck for sending the YouTube video that sparked my interest and inspired this blog.