With the start of a new school year it is a perfect time for all of us to think seriously about how students need an educational experience that deeply engages them every day.
And that is no easy task. In fact, it is one of the most difficult things our hard-working teachers do with every lesson.
This is important because if students do not find the lessons to be useful, interesting, or connected to their lives, they become bored. And when they become bored, the learning suffers, and far too often, a bored student becomes a student who eventually drops out.
When it comes to being interested or being bored, our children are no different than those of us in the adult world.
Think about it. You have tasks to do every day at work. If you don't see any reason why you are asked to do those tasks--if they don't make any sense to you at all--you will soon lose interest.
In addition, at work if you are constantly given things to do that you are not very good at--meaning you have certain strengths that you never get to use--you will also become very disinterested.
In our schools, however, we often ask our children to stay with it even if they find it to be boring, irrelevant, of no use, or extremely difficult.
That is not to say that we can't insist on hard work from students. We all understand that academic success takes a dedicated effort by students and teachers alike.
But we're not going to get young people to work hard if they don't see anything interesting at all in class.
You might be thinking, "But I worked hard for my grades when I was in school. One of the problems with the younger generations today is that they don't want to put forth the same effort. They just want everything to come easy to them."
I completely understand.
But as our children learn, where is it written that the schools they attend must be boring or unpleasant?
It is actually possible to get our students to work hard and to enjoy the learning process at the same time. In fact, one might contend that we can't have one without the other.
Author, educator, and presenter Raymond J. McNulty wrote that schools don't have to be boring.
In his book, "It's Not Us Against Them, Creating the Schools We Need" he wrote, "...many students do consider school to be boring. I think the worst thing about this is not the fact that students say school is boring, but that we know this is how they feel, and yet, we generally seem to accept this as normal and see no reason or way to change it."
But it should change.
Teachers can make every effort to connect the curriculum to the world outside of the school. Students can be given choices about the learning they will pursue within a given unit of study and they can be given some autonomy in their work.
In short, schools can be both fun and effective. This is literally a situation in which we can have our cake and eat it too.
The good news is that many good teachers are already making this happen. When student learning becomes more engaging, more relevant, and more meaningful, student understanding increases dramatically.
When an adult at work feels no real understanding about how the work makes a difference or when he or she finds no fulfillment or enjoyment at work, that adult will soon be switching jobs.
Again, our students are no different than the rest of us; they just can't switch schools as easily as an adult might switch jobs. They don't always have that choice.
They are expected to keep plodding along, even though emotionally and mentally they're tired of trying.
We've got to help those particular students find meaning in their school work and in all of life because in a very real sense, the lives of those students depend on it.
So as another school year begins, the challenge of reaching every student continues. Are we ready to keep them engaged?
DAVID WILSON, EdD, OF SPRINGDALE, IS A WRITER, CONSULTANT AND PRESENTER, WHO GREW UP IN ARKANSAS BUT WORKED 27 YEARS IN EDUCATION IN MISSOURI. YOU MAY E-MAIL HIM AT [email protected].
Editorial on 08/24/2016