3 ms·
That sounds like a difficult environment, and as they say "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink". However, here's a few things I'd be try
by LouisSayers 3y ago
That sounds like a difficult environment, and as they say "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink".
However, here's a few things I'd be trying:
1) Stories. One of the best uni professors I had was always breaking up his lessons with Stories. The time some people exploded a whale with dynamite, the Lawnchair Larry flight, the time he was held at knife Point while travelling. It just made the lectures more fun and made you feel good for having showed up.
2) Inspiring examples. I'd be inclined to work to find people who had been in their situation and gotten out. Bring them to class, get them to tell their stories.
3) Relevance. Making teaching examples that are edgy and somewhat relevant to their interests. If you're teaching English, use street slang in your examples. If you're teaching math, make examples about making money etc, getting creative and meeting your world with theirs.
- Scubabear68 3y agoAgree with all this. The key is to make it relatable to the students in some way. My son was struggling with Romeo and Juliet because of the archaic language, and the teacher never explained what many of the words and phrases meant. I would sit down with him and explain a scene in modern terms eg “OK, so basically the boys are going to a party, and one of Romeo’s friends is telling him not to be a stick in the mud and sulk off in the corner, but to actually have fun and talk to people”. At the beginning the play was completely alien to him. By the end, working together, he came to understand that the play engaged in timeless themes that are as true today as they were 400 years ago (love, prestige, ego, jealousy, anger, despair, remorse, etc).