The F Word Summary

Angelia Coleman
Jon Frederick
English 102
8 March 2013
Helping Students Succeed
While teachers in the classroom should aim to give students the best education possible they do have many students who have issues outside of school. This may cause a student not to focus on studies when not in class. Many students deal with issues of divorce, drugs, and poverty. These issues in the home can weigh greatly on a student trying to reach their goals of completing high school or earning a degree. Teachers should take into account the students home life and if needed should modify their teaching to help these students succeed.
Teaching is not just for preparing lessons, presenting them, and grading papers. Teachers must also be aware if a student is having difficulties outside the classroom. They must do more than go through the motions of teaching and truly teach. Each student must be involved in the classroom and students having trouble outside of school should be given extra time for assignments during school hours. Students should not be just passed along and given the grade but should be helped where needed. When a student asks for help in class the teacher generally helps that student. This is no different for a student having trouble at home. They should be given help as well. The student with trouble at home should be given extra attention and time in class if needed.
In the story “In Praise of the F Word” Mary Sherry gives evidence that being hard on a student makes them succeed due to the fear of failure. Mary Sherry gave the evidence of adult students she had taught and of her son. The adult students felt that they had been cheated in the educational system because they had been passed without knowing the material. This speaks more for the teaching rather than the student. Students must be given an opportunity to succeed. These adults were just passed along without doing the work. Mary Sherry’s son had been threatened with failure when he was scared into passing. Nothing was mentioned about either the adult students or Mary Sherry’s son having problems outside the classroom.
Today teaching has come a long way and there is more focus on a students need as a whole. In the article “Helping at-risk students succeed” from American Psychological Association psychologists Howard Adelman, Phd. and Linda Taylor, Phd. were hired to work with a school in Louisiana. After 30years of research at UCLA and in the Los Angeles public schools they found that when students were punished or removed from the classroom that it interfered with their academic progress. They came up with a model to help students that included six components. These six components consist of: making changes to the classroom instruction to bring support personnel into the class, supporting children through transitions at home and school, connecting families to school and school activities, maximizing community resources, reorganizing crisis assistance and prevention, and improving links to external mental health and behavioral services. With this model they hope to help students with problems outside the classroom and improve psychosocial well-being and academic progress. This model is being promoted nationally and is currently being used in several states in the U.S.
Many children have problems outside of the classroom that may hinder them inside the classroom. These children need a little boost in the right direction and teaching the student as a whole and giving these students what they need to succeed is the key. Teachers should learn to recognize these students and modify their teaching if needed.

Work Cited
Sherry, Mary. “In Praise of the F Word.” Newsweek, 1991
DeAngelis, Tori. “Helping at-risk students succeed.” American Psychological Association. (Feb. 2012). Web. 8 March 2013.