Overcoming Student Apathy: Motivating Students for Academic Success

Overcoming Student Apathy: Motivating Students for Academic Success provides a candid look into the hearts and minds of many of today's struggling students. Frustrated teachers and administrators typically stop at labeling the symptoms shown by these students: apathy, low motivation, laziness. Overcoming Student Apathy clarifies the situation, while proposing tips to rise to the challenge. Apathy plagues many of today's middle and high school classrooms, and the problem will not spontaneously disappear. Teachers must be willing to move beyond the "they don't care" attitude to discover how we can eradicate this nemesis to learning. Overcoming Student Apathy guides the reader toward success with the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, the devalued, and the demoralized. Eight archetypes are used in narrative form to represent the various forms that apathy assumes in our classrooms (e.g., The Rebel, The Downtrodden, The Invisible). Teachers will identify with both the students and the teachers portrayed in the book; thus, transferring understanding and applications back to their own classrooms.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 The Rebel Chapter 3 The Socialite Chapter 4 The Misfit Chapter 5 The Overachiever Chapter 6 The Player Chapter 7 The Overwhelmed Chapter 8 The Downtrodden Chapter 9 The Invisible Chapter 10 Conclusion

About the Author :
Jeff C. Marshall has received National Board Teaching Ceritification and is assistant professor in the School of Education at Clemson University, SC.

Review :
Reaching the unmotivated student has always been a challenge, one that some teachers give up on too quickly because they have too many students, not enough faith in themselves or their students, or they have hit a wall with a few students. Student Apathy: Strategies to Increase Student Motivation and Academic Success is an enormously helpful addition to the literature about reaching those students, not just for new teachers, but for all of us who need to revisit our reasons for teaching and to reconnect with all of our students. The scenarios are real and all teachers will recognize these struggling students represented in this very readable and informative book. We have all had them in class. What Jeff Marshall and his associates have done is to go beyond the usual talk about motivation and given wonderful suggestions-yes, that's what they are-not dictates or superior preachings. As you read the different stories of students with various responses to learning, you will chuckle or shake your head at these too familiar young people. This book offers all of us a sense of hope and rededication to teaching and believing in all of our students, and at the same time gives us more strategies to use to reach them. Apathy robs our classes of the energy, passion, and enthusiasm that we aspire to create with our students each fall." This statement best summarizes the work by Marshall, as well as my personal philosophy of education. Apathy tears the educational system apart. This book examines eight students and the a) situational apathy or b) deeper issues that cause it to flourish in the educational system. I plan to share the examples in this text with my high school seniors in the Cadet Teaching class next fall. If they can learn to identify these warning signals, perhaps we as educators can get a grip on the beast in order to tame it and eliminate it from our classrooms. Jeff Marshall provides compelling evidence that teaching to a student's strengths will garner success. Marshall's work reflects teaching strategies that would help any teacher in the classroom. He has demonstrated these strategies as he motivated a group of at-risk high school students to design, build, and race a solar car. By teaching to students' strengths, Marshall led students to achieve two national solar car titles. These students had previously questioned if graduation was even possible. Marshall's mission is always to show relevance of curriculum to students and teachers. He does not just teach; he reaches people and motivates them to learn and win.