It’s Just Too Damn Boring:
Media Selection And Motivation For Two Seniors In High School
Citation: Baines, (2010, August). Just too damn boring. Paper presented at American Sociological Association, Atlanta, GA
I had been serving as a consultant for a high school in Georgia, demonstrating ways to integrate technology effectively into instruction across curricular areas to the school’s faculty. An English teacher was kind enough to invite me into her classroom to watch her use of technology in instruction for a lesson on Shakespeare. The lesson was built around several “learning stations,” which contained interesting activities related to the life and work of the Bard. One station required students to read a specific scene from the play Macbeth, then to watch film clips from two plays shown on a laptop computer. A second station, also a computer station, featured a CD-ROM of articles, photographs, and film about the Globe Theater. A third station required students to dress up in costume, to act out scenes from the play, and to film the entire process. The fourth station asked students to respond in writing to several paintings inspired by Shakespearean plays.
Overall, students seemed highly engaged with the activities at each of the stations. The teacher had expertly designed the activities so that students were engaged in lively discussions of interpretation, use of Shakespearean language, and subtleties of theme and plot. The only students who did not seem engaged were two males—Red and John. I asked about Red and John and the teacher told me that they were both failing the class, thus were in danger of not graduating from high school. Perhaps because I had an over-inflated view of my effectiveness as consultant and because there seemed to be nothing to lose, I asked the teacher if I could work individually with John and Red for a period of eight weeks to try to get them motivated and passing English class. The teacher immediately agreed to let me tutor John and Red two days per week. I would create a curriculum and their efforts towards mastery of it would help determine their final grade in English.
Being familiar with the body of research on the importance of student engagement, I was determined that I would first learn what interested Red and John, then build a curriculum off of what I learned.
For the first two meetings, John, Red, and I simply went to a room in the library and discussed their interests and hobbies. Both were fond of video games and sports, especially football and fishing. When I tried to steer conversation in the direction of possible careers, neither John nor Red could see himself holding any job, whatsoever, except perhaps fishing guide. When I explained that the market for fishing guides was probably relatively small in their rural community, they seemed mildly disappointed.
Red explained to me that he would probably go to college and would discover his interests there. In fact, Red confessed, he had been counting on being offered a football scholarship to The University of Georgia. Although I was impressed that Red had been an accomplished football player, I asked how many letters he had received from The University of Georgia or any college recruiters. He said that he had received none. As it was already February, I informed him that most coaches had already sent letters to players they had hoped to recruit to their colleges and that players usually signed in February.
Similarly John explained that his forte was baseball, though he had had a terrible senior year and expected no recruiters to come calling. Once he began telling his story in more depth, I learned that John actually quit the baseball team midway through the season. Both Red and John thought they would go to college, though neither had applied—not even to the nearby community college.
I allowed the boys’ interests to guide whatever curricular materials I brought in. Since they had shown interest in sports and fishing, I brought in articles on working on boats and in fisheries in various locations in the United States.
“Why you bringin’ in this stuff?” asked John one day.
“You said you were interested in fishing,” I said. “You are interested in fishing, aren’t you?”
John and Red both laughed. “Of course, but not like this. I mean, look at this fool.” Red pointed to a photo of a fisherman in bright yellow rain gear, maneuvering a net full of freshly caught fish.
“He crazy,” said John.
After a few conversations about pay for fishermen, the “work week,” and several sessions concerning the pros and cons of particular jobs, I learned that both boys had some interest in athletic training. Both had been injured at different points in their careers and had come to respect the school district’s trainer, who showed up on the sidelines during football and baseball games throughout the season. Both agreed that athletic training was a field that seemed interesting, one in which they could actually see themselves working.
Thus, I began methodically collecting data on the process of becoming an athletic trainer. During my research, I learned that Georgia had recently passed a law that required all schools to have credentialed athletic trainers assigned to each school. This, I supposed, would be an additional incentive for Red and John to learn about the profession that they had chosen to study. I planned to provide curricular materials in specific formats at different points in time with the intent of ascertaining the medium preferred by the young men. Weeks 1-2 would focus on print material, especially text; weeks 3-4 would involve visual media, such as photographs and film; weeks 5-6 would involve web-based resources and discussion; week 7 would involve personal interviews with local athletic trainers; week 8 would serve as a wrap-up.
I videotaped each session with the idea that I would play back and examine the video upon occasion to see if I could ascertain their degree of the boys’ involvement in the activity-at-hand. Also, I wanted to see if John and Red acted differently when I was in the room and when I was not.
Weeks 1-2
In the first week, the boys learned that individuals seeking careers in athletic training had to acquire a college degree along with specialized course work in anatomy and physiology. This seemed to cause their enthusiasm to wane. Undeterred, I wrote to the National Athletic Trainer’s Association (NATA), explained what I was doing, and requested as much free stuff as they could give me. NATA responded generously by promptly sending me brochures, the NATA Newsletter, a copy of Journal of Athletic Training and a password that would give me access to a wealth of information available exclusively to NATA members on the organization’s website (www.nata.org). Both John and Red seemed to like the print publications and I told them that we would visit the website in a few weeks.
The first two weeks proceeded in this fashion:
1) I brought in current magazine and newspaper articles that contained narratives about athletic trainers working in college and high schools.
2) I introduced the lesson by highlighting aspects of an article and tried to get them interested in it.
3) I posed a few questions and ask them to read to find out the answers to these questions.
4) They read the articles, wrote out their responses to the readings, and participated in discussions led by me.
5) I asked them to summarize the main ideas of the readings at the end of each day.
6) I offered previews of the next class.
7) We completed each session during the time that their English class met.
Weeks 3-4
At the beginning of the third week, I took some pride in noticing that the NATA brochures were starting to show some wear. When I asked the boys to get out the brochures when discussing a point about how certification varied by state, John pulled out his brochure from his back pocket; Red reached for his, underneath the clear vinyl cover of his notebook.
Originally, I had thought that the third and fourth weeks would be among the most enjoyable and interesting for the students. I was showing various films of athletic trainers in action along with interviews with and speeches by former football players, including former New York Jet Dennis Byrd. In 1992, Byrd became temporarily paralyzed following a hit in a game against Kansas City. Thanks to the heroics of a quick-thinking athletic trainer on the field, Byrd managed to recover and regain use of his limbs. Most of the films contained actual footage of NFL games and athletic trainers in action, which I thought would keep the interest of both boys.
I had previewed the films and prepared lists of questions which they were to answer as they watched. I watched the films with them in our room at the library, but took the opportunity to walk out of the room to see what they might do without me hovering around. The videocamera had been on since day one and they had, after the first day, seemed oblivious to its presence. At the end of the fourth week, when I reviewed the film of John and Red watching and responding to the questionnaires about the films, I noticed that, as soon as I walked out of the room, Red would put his head down on his desk, where it remained until I walked back into the room.
Weeks 5-6
By week five, exuberance for the study of athletic training had ebbed for both boys. Although they had plenty of time to respond to questions on a brief quiz about the content of the films at the end of week four, neither boy even bothered to answer half of the questions. However, when I reviewed the quiz later, both seemed to know the answers to questions that had been left blank.
They feigned mild interest when I brought in a salary scale for teachers and athletic trainers in nearby school districts and asked them to compute how much money they would make each month as an athletic trainer. My next focus was going to be on accessing the “member’s only” section of the NATA website, as well as information available about athletic training available anywhere on the web.
As with the film, when I was helping them individually, guiding them to uncover information and to fill out their data sheets about athletic training, they seemed mildly aware and interested. As soon as I left the room, both boys would stop working. The last time I left the room, the videotape captured the following interaction:
John: “What are we supposed to do?”
Red: “Do the sheet.”
John: “Where are the answers?”
Red: “See, fool, right there” (pointing to the screen).
Pause
John: “This is just too damn boring.”
Red: “Stupid as shit.”
Week 7
I had tried to sell the meeting with current athletic trainers as an “inside track to a good job.” I had contacted the athletic trainer at a local college, a trainer at the nearby community college, a trainer at the rival high school, and the personnel director of the local school district. They had all agreed to meet with John and Red on the campus of the nearby college where one of the athletic trainers worked. The week before the scheduled meeting, Red, John, and I discussed how to pose questions and how to interact with professional adults. Together we worked up a series of questions about procedures, job duties, and issues, such as the career ladder and serving as trainer for both men’s and women’s teams.
The day before the scheduled meeting, which had been set after school at 4:30, I asked John and Red if they wanted me to take them to the campus and accompany them to the meeting. They insisted that John would drive and that my presence would only interfere. “We don’t need no teacher driving us around like we was kids,” said Red. I brought John a special parking permit that I had procured at great trouble from the college’s Parking Office that would allow him to park his car right in front of the building where they were to meet the trainers. I made sure that they knew where they were to meet. John insisted that he did. In fact, the high school had gone on a field trip to the college in fall. I was convinced that they were going to benefit greatly by the interview. I hoped that they might even land jobs for the summer.
Conclusion
Although I should have known better, nevertheless, I was startled when the college’s athletic trainer called and told me that no students attended the gathering that I had so carefully arranged. Red and John never showed up. The discussion with local trainers and administrators about the possibility of landing real jobs and perhaps enrolling in college the next year turned out to be a complete wash.
I showed up at Red and John’s school the next day more than a little depressed.
“Why didn’t you show?” I asked.
“No one is going to give guys like us jobs,” said John.
I set up one last class meeting to “wrap up” my exercise with the spontaneously created curricula on athletic training and to give the boy’s grades to their English teacher. During our final, debriefing session, both boys admitted that they didn’t care for most of the curriculum. In fact, they could not list any one of the activities that I had created that they actually enjoyed. The “least worst” activity [sic], it turns out, was talking about the contents of the brochure. They enjoyed talking, but they didn’t like writing, surfing the Internet, watching films, or “trying to remember stupid details.” Both boys said that they still had the brochures and planned to keep them. But, they confessed that they found everything else boring. Neither wanted to become an athletic trainer.
My preconceived notion that visual media and web-based materials would be warmly received by these two 18-year-old boys was sadly mistaken. Furthermore, I grossly overestimated the boys’ genuine levels of involvement with athletic training and the lure of college and future employment in their lives. While teaching to student interests and integrating technology are often invoked as effective tools of instruction, I had limited success using these strategies with John and Red.
Overall, students seemed highly engaged with the activities at each of the stations. The teacher had expertly designed the activities so that students were engaged in lively discussions of interpretation, use of Shakespearean language, and subtleties of theme and plot. The only students who did not seem engaged were two males—Red and John. I asked about Red and John and the teacher told me that they were both failing the class, thus were in danger of not graduating from high school. Perhaps because I had an over-inflated view of my effectiveness as consultant and because there seemed to be nothing to lose, I asked the teacher if I could work individually with John and Red for a period of eight weeks to try to get them motivated and passing English class. The teacher immediately agreed to let me tutor John and Red two days per week. I would create a curriculum and their efforts towards mastery of it would help determine their final grade in English.
Being familiar with the body of research on the importance of student engagement, I was determined that I would first learn what interested Red and John, then build a curriculum off of what I learned.
For the first two meetings, John, Red, and I simply went to a room in the library and discussed their interests and hobbies. Both were fond of video games and sports, especially football and fishing. When I tried to steer conversation in the direction of possible careers, neither John nor Red could see himself holding any job, whatsoever, except perhaps fishing guide. When I explained that the market for fishing guides was probably relatively small in their rural community, they seemed mildly disappointed.
Red explained to me that he would probably go to college and would discover his interests there. In fact, Red confessed, he had been counting on being offered a football scholarship to The University of Georgia. Although I was impressed that Red had been an accomplished football player, I asked how many letters he had received from The University of Georgia or any college recruiters. He said that he had received none. As it was already February, I informed him that most coaches had already sent letters to players they had hoped to recruit to their colleges and that players usually signed in February.
Similarly John explained that his forte was baseball, though he had had a terrible senior year and expected no recruiters to come calling. Once he began telling his story in more depth, I learned that John actually quit the baseball team midway through the season. Both Red and John thought they would go to college, though neither had applied—not even to the nearby community college.
I allowed the boys’ interests to guide whatever curricular materials I brought in. Since they had shown interest in sports and fishing, I brought in articles on working on boats and in fisheries in various locations in the United States.
“Why you bringin’ in this stuff?” asked John one day.
“You said you were interested in fishing,” I said. “You are interested in fishing, aren’t you?”
John and Red both laughed. “Of course, but not like this. I mean, look at this fool.” Red pointed to a photo of a fisherman in bright yellow rain gear, maneuvering a net full of freshly caught fish.
“He crazy,” said John.
After a few conversations about pay for fishermen, the “work week,” and several sessions concerning the pros and cons of particular jobs, I learned that both boys had some interest in athletic training. Both had been injured at different points in their careers and had come to respect the school district’s trainer, who showed up on the sidelines during football and baseball games throughout the season. Both agreed that athletic training was a field that seemed interesting, one in which they could actually see themselves working.
Thus, I began methodically collecting data on the process of becoming an athletic trainer. During my research, I learned that Georgia had recently passed a law that required all schools to have credentialed athletic trainers assigned to each school. This, I supposed, would be an additional incentive for Red and John to learn about the profession that they had chosen to study. I planned to provide curricular materials in specific formats at different points in time with the intent of ascertaining the medium preferred by the young men. Weeks 1-2 would focus on print material, especially text; weeks 3-4 would involve visual media, such as photographs and film; weeks 5-6 would involve web-based resources and discussion; week 7 would involve personal interviews with local athletic trainers; week 8 would serve as a wrap-up.
I videotaped each session with the idea that I would play back and examine the video upon occasion to see if I could ascertain their degree of the boys’ involvement in the activity-at-hand. Also, I wanted to see if John and Red acted differently when I was in the room and when I was not.
Weeks 1-2
In the first week, the boys learned that individuals seeking careers in athletic training had to acquire a college degree along with specialized course work in anatomy and physiology. This seemed to cause their enthusiasm to wane. Undeterred, I wrote to the National Athletic Trainer’s Association (NATA), explained what I was doing, and requested as much free stuff as they could give me. NATA responded generously by promptly sending me brochures, the NATA Newsletter, a copy of Journal of Athletic Training and a password that would give me access to a wealth of information available exclusively to NATA members on the organization’s website (www.nata.org). Both John and Red seemed to like the print publications and I told them that we would visit the website in a few weeks.
The first two weeks proceeded in this fashion:
1) I brought in current magazine and newspaper articles that contained narratives about athletic trainers working in college and high schools.
2) I introduced the lesson by highlighting aspects of an article and tried to get them interested in it.
3) I posed a few questions and ask them to read to find out the answers to these questions.
4) They read the articles, wrote out their responses to the readings, and participated in discussions led by me.
5) I asked them to summarize the main ideas of the readings at the end of each day.
6) I offered previews of the next class.
7) We completed each session during the time that their English class met.
Weeks 3-4
At the beginning of the third week, I took some pride in noticing that the NATA brochures were starting to show some wear. When I asked the boys to get out the brochures when discussing a point about how certification varied by state, John pulled out his brochure from his back pocket; Red reached for his, underneath the clear vinyl cover of his notebook.
Originally, I had thought that the third and fourth weeks would be among the most enjoyable and interesting for the students. I was showing various films of athletic trainers in action along with interviews with and speeches by former football players, including former New York Jet Dennis Byrd. In 1992, Byrd became temporarily paralyzed following a hit in a game against Kansas City. Thanks to the heroics of a quick-thinking athletic trainer on the field, Byrd managed to recover and regain use of his limbs. Most of the films contained actual footage of NFL games and athletic trainers in action, which I thought would keep the interest of both boys.
I had previewed the films and prepared lists of questions which they were to answer as they watched. I watched the films with them in our room at the library, but took the opportunity to walk out of the room to see what they might do without me hovering around. The videocamera had been on since day one and they had, after the first day, seemed oblivious to its presence. At the end of the fourth week, when I reviewed the film of John and Red watching and responding to the questionnaires about the films, I noticed that, as soon as I walked out of the room, Red would put his head down on his desk, where it remained until I walked back into the room.
Weeks 5-6
By week five, exuberance for the study of athletic training had ebbed for both boys. Although they had plenty of time to respond to questions on a brief quiz about the content of the films at the end of week four, neither boy even bothered to answer half of the questions. However, when I reviewed the quiz later, both seemed to know the answers to questions that had been left blank.
They feigned mild interest when I brought in a salary scale for teachers and athletic trainers in nearby school districts and asked them to compute how much money they would make each month as an athletic trainer. My next focus was going to be on accessing the “member’s only” section of the NATA website, as well as information available about athletic training available anywhere on the web.
As with the film, when I was helping them individually, guiding them to uncover information and to fill out their data sheets about athletic training, they seemed mildly aware and interested. As soon as I left the room, both boys would stop working. The last time I left the room, the videotape captured the following interaction:
John: “What are we supposed to do?”
Red: “Do the sheet.”
John: “Where are the answers?”
Red: “See, fool, right there” (pointing to the screen).
Pause
John: “This is just too damn boring.”
Red: “Stupid as shit.”
Week 7
I had tried to sell the meeting with current athletic trainers as an “inside track to a good job.” I had contacted the athletic trainer at a local college, a trainer at the nearby community college, a trainer at the rival high school, and the personnel director of the local school district. They had all agreed to meet with John and Red on the campus of the nearby college where one of the athletic trainers worked. The week before the scheduled meeting, Red, John, and I discussed how to pose questions and how to interact with professional adults. Together we worked up a series of questions about procedures, job duties, and issues, such as the career ladder and serving as trainer for both men’s and women’s teams.
The day before the scheduled meeting, which had been set after school at 4:30, I asked John and Red if they wanted me to take them to the campus and accompany them to the meeting. They insisted that John would drive and that my presence would only interfere. “We don’t need no teacher driving us around like we was kids,” said Red. I brought John a special parking permit that I had procured at great trouble from the college’s Parking Office that would allow him to park his car right in front of the building where they were to meet the trainers. I made sure that they knew where they were to meet. John insisted that he did. In fact, the high school had gone on a field trip to the college in fall. I was convinced that they were going to benefit greatly by the interview. I hoped that they might even land jobs for the summer.
Conclusion
Although I should have known better, nevertheless, I was startled when the college’s athletic trainer called and told me that no students attended the gathering that I had so carefully arranged. Red and John never showed up. The discussion with local trainers and administrators about the possibility of landing real jobs and perhaps enrolling in college the next year turned out to be a complete wash.
I showed up at Red and John’s school the next day more than a little depressed.
“Why didn’t you show?” I asked.
“No one is going to give guys like us jobs,” said John.
I set up one last class meeting to “wrap up” my exercise with the spontaneously created curricula on athletic training and to give the boy’s grades to their English teacher. During our final, debriefing session, both boys admitted that they didn’t care for most of the curriculum. In fact, they could not list any one of the activities that I had created that they actually enjoyed. The “least worst” activity [sic], it turns out, was talking about the contents of the brochure. They enjoyed talking, but they didn’t like writing, surfing the Internet, watching films, or “trying to remember stupid details.” Both boys said that they still had the brochures and planned to keep them. But, they confessed that they found everything else boring. Neither wanted to become an athletic trainer.
My preconceived notion that visual media and web-based materials would be warmly received by these two 18-year-old boys was sadly mistaken. Furthermore, I grossly overestimated the boys’ genuine levels of involvement with athletic training and the lure of college and future employment in their lives. While teaching to student interests and integrating technology are often invoked as effective tools of instruction, I had limited success using these strategies with John and Red.