Learning inner locus of control

I thought about titling this post "Learned Helplessness" or "Teaching Initiative."  It has been a week in which this idea has been a theme.  Tuesday was a particularly frustrating day in which students seemed helpless to do anything without my guidance.  Maybe my biggest frustration with students is their wasting time--doing nothing, chatting, or now, texting.  But from their perspective, doing nothing is waiting for me to tell them what to do.  I heard statements like, "I'm waiting for you to help me" or " You didn't give me the answer sheet" or "You never taught me this stuff" or "I don't have anything to do" or "I can't find my book, notebook, packet, etc.".

Each student has a list of goals and materials in front of her folder.  They don't need me to get started.  But there are so many distractions--the opportunity to chat with other young moms, the cell phone, snacks, and maybe just exhaustion from sick babies--or partying.

T had a particularly rough day on Tuesday.  She chatted with her sister through Parent and Child Together time.  She was the last one in class, she got stuck on one problem and couldn't do anything else while waiting for help, she was the last one back from break, and she has to take additional time later  to get a child to the Head Start bus.  She got almost nothing done all morning and it frustrated me a lot.  She has an enormous amount of responsiblity in her life as the custodian of nine siblings ranging from 2 to 18.  I don't know how she stays sane.  But if I take the attitude of "Poor T, I need to give her a break", she'll never get a GED.  I called her after class and tried to use I language, not You language.  "I need you to be a leader in the class", not "You never get anything done!".  She was not happy with me, but Wednesday was so much better in every way. 

I also tried to have individual, short conferences with each student on Wednesday to make sure her goals were clear and she knew what to do on her own.  I try to say, "What do you think you should work on?"  We had a much better day on Wednesday.