Throughout the semester, we have discussed the different concerns in American school classrooms. Most importantly, student’s performance levels have been questioned. Due to different factors in any child’s life, he or she may develop, learned helplessness, which may affect their learning abilities.
Learned Helplessness can be defined as passively giving up on future accomplishments. Once a student begins to believe that their actions are futile, and they are incompetent. As I learned in both EDU 3001, and EDU 3002, learned helplessness may affect student’s capabilities in the classroom setting; whether it is physically, or mentally. I will further discuss why students may face learned helplessness, and different ways to resolve the issue.
One of the primary examples of learned helplessness is “If a student studies a lot but consistently makes poor grades he/she will start to feel depressed.” The student may feel that success is far from his/her hand reach. With this in mind, the student may feel isolated from his/her peers and fall below curriculum standards.
Secondly, we have put great emphasis on the importance of parental guidance in a child’s educational experience. In Springs text, the factor of nature vs. nurture is a very important aspect in the upbringing of a child’s life. However, “If a mother tries to discipline her child in different ways, such as, timeout, spanking or words and the child still acts in ways she dislikes (misbehavior), she will start to feel there’s nothing she can do to help the child or herself. She may be failing as a parent.”In addition to failing as a parent, the child may be affected by this form of discipline. They may begin to feel that is the only way the mother can communicate with them. Unfortunately, the student can become stressed from the issues in their households and perform in an unsatisfactory manner in the classroom.
With the assistance of their teachers, during afterschool programs, resolutions can be made. If students consistently ask instructors for constructive feedback, they may benefit from it. Secondly, through cooperative learning, students will be able to share new ideas with each other. This ensures a balance of immediate information for each student to generate new ideas, unseen by others. Overall, an intentional teacher, who is familiar with importance of a high quality education, can work with students to improve his/her students in the classroom.In addition, to parental involvement and the better understanding of self motivation, any student can succeed in their educational experience.
