Mr. Coulter and his Views on Motivation Levels at SDHS

High school is supposed to be the base or foundation for students to explore and find out a bit about who they are so that they can go on to live their own lives. Why does it seem so hard for a majority of students, especially at SDHS to keep themselves motivated and away from apathy then? 

Mr. Coulter is an English teacher at SDHS who wants to find out more about why students on campus do not seem to utilize the seemingly available resources on campus for help, including one he has created, the GOST squad. He’s a teacher that puts a lot of effort into advocating for students to be heard, which is something that quite a lot of other teachers do not always put much effort into, only systematically teaching their lessons. 

The GOST Squad stands for “Group Of Student Tutors” which Mr. Coulter manages.

Apathy within the majority of students is proven by the recent survey where most students admitted that it’s not that the workload is far too long,  but that there’s too much that goes on at school and in their personal lives to the point where they are left feeling too fatigued to deal with anything else. 

Mr . Coulter says he tries to help make students’ voices heard through his Courageous Conversations, Integrity Team Meetings, and GOST Squad, and always makes sure that he tries his best to make any student he interacts with feel like a valid person and not just a machine. 

Would it be possible for a reason for more apathy and less drive in students to be the way teachers deal with them all monotonously? School is not the only thing that affects a student’s life; many of them lack support at home, so school should be a place where they get supported and pulled out of any place they might be struggling; however,  it seems like that support is truly lacking and only showing in superficial ways through signs and posters and saying things “Mental Health Matters.”

In the real world, mental health still matters but it cannot be something that people let hinder their actual progress in life and their goals. The way schools treat mental health is quite opposing to that, saying that they care about their students but seem to struggle in helping students create productive actions with their opinions and ideas, which stems from ignorance of different people’s living situations or past traumas.

Mr. Coulter has pointed out that they don’t even care or teach about important cultural holidays that are not popular in the media, like Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month unless people make a big deal out of it. 

If it seems like this school has no awareness of diversity, why would students want to focus on much in this school that kind of barely acknowledges that these are all students that are supposed to make the most of their potential, not let them feel demeaned? 

Another issue is the fights. Why do some students feel the need to break a few rules and ruin their image to make a point? Is it because they aren’t listened to when communicating normally, so instead they decide to turn all apathetic?