I am showing grace, but they must show effort and communication with me. Compassion and understanding have to be at the front of all we do. Their answer might surprise you.Īfter 21 years of teaching, I realize that kids have issues we aren’t aware of. Mark it missing, and ask what’s going on. Here are some ways teachers are helping students who aren’t doing any work. Do they have the skills they need to complete it? Is it too much? Not enough? If we know we are asking students to do work that is fair, we can shift our attention to why they aren’t doing it. I’m dependent on the kids to their work so I can do my job.” So what do we do? A common thread in the comments was: before we put a zero in our grade books, it’s worth evaluating if the work we’re asking students to do is meaningful. As one teacher, Mary, put it, “I feel like I am a project manager sometimes more than a teacher. If students don’t do any work this feels impossible. We want our students to learn, but in order for us to determine if they have learned, we need them to do the work. There’s a reason why the Facebook discussion over this topic generated so many comments. How we respond to missing or late work says a lot about what we think it means to be a teacher. There are ways we can help students who aren’t doing any work. But penalizing students who aren’t doing any work doesn’t solve the problem. I want to celebrate those who do, but penalize those who don’t” in our WeAreTeacher HELPLINE Facebook group. We want to teach and help our students learn, not spend hours taking away points in Class Dojo or making exceptions. So it did not surprise me when I saw a teacher post, “Warning vent ahead: I am so tired of students not doing their work. What do you do when your students aren’t doing any work? Whether you are a new teacher or a veteran, we all struggle with this.

I want to complete my homework