Comment by Dfiesl
12 hours ago
Im definitely in this camp.
It seems like the biggest frustration from the teachers’ part with modern schooling is lack of engagement from the students. This is clearly telling us something.
Sure some students have not even had their basic needs met, which is a separate issue. But those that have and still don’t engage tells us that their brains have probably assigned the information they’re receiving as “having little or no value”, i.e. meaningless.
I bet if you were to lead a class of teenagers on the subject of relationships or friendship, or even how to host a successful party, suddenly you’d see a lot more engagement. Why? Because it’s actually relevant to their every day existence.
I think math bas be slowly transforming more and more into word problems and scenarios. You might think oh yeah this engages the student by showing them reality, but I actually found it incredibly boring and useless, it served as a distraction from the actual numbers that I think are important to learn too.
Part of the goal there is not only "relatability" (demonstrating how this could be useful in reality) but "applicability" (demonstrating HOW to distill a math problem out of some potentially messy real world anecdote).
I have legit seen real world adults do things like say "Well, I got ten widgets because I know that's enough for two people. But there's gonna be four coming so.. uh.. 10+2=12, I'll bring 12 widgets"
In highschool, at least, you have to somehow elevate the meaning of your subject to be more interesting than the movie theatre/concert/video game system they have in their pocket.
Kids will make eye contact with you and nod along as you teach, but they are wearing air pods and can't hear you over their spotify playlist.
Im not sure I can be more interesting than Taylor Swift, Call of Duty, MrBeast, and texting with friends all at the same time. You need the student to be a little bit receptive to even have the opportunity to convince them what you are teaching is relevant to them.
Just ban the phones from schools. Because with that you cannot compete. Instant gratification vs hard work?