Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Am I rooting for procrastination?

As I type up my thoughts on the causes of procrastination in these student papers, I wonder if I'm not being open enough to the idea that procrastination is a problem. I seem to explain away everything that might suggest procrastination is harmful. Which is reasonable in that if I do want to suggest procrastination has effects, I need to first rule out other explanations.

But I wonder what I feel as a teacher.

If procrastination accounts for a large proportion of problems in students' papers, what do I do? Do I just force them to turn in drafts and participate in other process-oriented activities? Part of me thinks it's easier to blame procrastination because it's a factor teachers don't have to feel responsible. We remind our students not to put off their assignments, so when they write bad papers at the last minute, it's their own fault.

1 comment:

Samantha said...
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