Failure in the classroom is often tied to lack of funding, poor teachers or other ills. Here’s a thought: Maybe it’s the failed work ethic of todays kids. That’s what I’m seeing in my school. Until reformers see this reality, little will change.
Original Yahoo story
I found this story through Newsvine today. I don’t know if I can say for sure if kids are too lazy or not as I don’t have much to go on. So I started thinking about it in respect to my own life.
I have the position of being freshly out of school and also being one of the lazy kids. I’m not going to sugarcoat things or try to hide the fact that I was lazy about school. In both college and high school, there were subjects I just didn’t care about and because of this, put forth very little effort in those classes. For instance, in high school it was the English and History classes. Other than being somewhat trivial or interesting sometimes, I didn’t see any need for me to know much History if I was going to program computers. In college, it was German. I was required to take 3 semesters and frankly, I got nothing out of it. The only reason I took those classes was because I was required to. Maybe that’s a good thing. I’m sure there have been situations that I’ve used that knowledge in: trivial or otherwise. Ironically, I now love to write (music reviews, in my blog, news articles, etc.) and thoroughly enjoy the History channel.
Maybe part of my problem was the way it was presented. I’m very technology oriented; a self-proclaimed technology nut. One example of this is I never read books. Magazines, occiasonally. The last time I picked up a book (fiction or non-fiction) was 2 years ago in college. Not to say I don’t read now, because I read plenty, but it’s all on a computer screen. Had some of the material I considered boring been presented to me on a computer, I would’ve no doubt been more responsive and at the least, a little more interested in it. Realistically, you can’t customize a class for every student in it. But finding ways to connect with kids and their lifestyle will make it more interesting for them.
