Feb 26 2010
When a Time Line has no Time Line
Middle school projects are so much easier to direct, because the teachers give the students milestones to meet along the way. In high school, the student is told when the project is due and expected to create milestones for himself. Josiah’s milestones consist of: “The project is due tomorrow. I guess I’ll get to work.”
Abby is brilliant at making poster board presentations. She color coordinates the items, determines the correct font, and spaces the layout before she glues items onto or writes on the poster board. She can complete a poster board presentation quickly and efficiently.
Josiah’s poster board presentations are never quick and efficient. He starts at the top and by the time he gets to the bottom, he runs out of room. He miscalculates spacing, writes with permanent marker in the wrong place, and becomes frustrated by 930pm because “everything won’t fit!”.
He was given 6 projects at the beginning of this semester. Instead of working on some of them during his two weeks of snow days, he decided to use the time for book reading, t.v. watching, internet surfing, and video game playing. I gave reminders (he would say I nagged him) about the benefits of working on projects in advance. His defense of leaving the Spanish project until the last minute was “it’s just a time line.”
He went to bed at 230am last night.
I identify with Josiah. Why do today that which you can put off until tomorrow, and if tomorrow never comes it won’t matter anyhow. ;~D
However,as a teacher I certainly do not advocate that my students have this mindset. NO, NO NEVER! :~(