The problem with school is that all kids aren't interested in the same thing at the same time so you'll never come up with a curriculum change to suit every child. Kids naturally LOVE to learn, that's part of being human..but we train in out of them at school with standardization and a fixed curriculum. If we want kids to be able to think for themselves and solve problems in the real world, they need self-directed education.
1
As a community college teacher in a small rural district where over 50% of my students come in with some type of academic deficiency--a categorized deficiency that testing shows us, not one that I've actually seen when the students are engaged--I have to say that the high school teachers are under so much pressure to pass students that it's less about them learning and more about them trying to cram information into students heads so they can pass the standardized tests. While this is a serious problem, I think the biggest problem is the fact that teachers must have state mandated certification to teach. I'm sure this sounds insane, but with a Ph.D. I can't actually teach in the local high schools. I have to pass a test to gain certification so that I can teach in the high school; however, I'm qualified to teach at the college level. It's the people who know their subject best who should teach these students because those with the greatest subject knowledge are willing to push the boundaries of educating these students. If I didn't have a working knowledge of literature from 1600-present, it would be terrifying to try and engage students. I would stick to the curriculum that was handed out to me so I wasn't shown as an imposter by the probing questions students ask when they're actually interested. If we allowed people with extensive subject knowledge to teach all levels of students, we'd get more engaged faculty and more enthusiastic students.
40
One important reason things like the school paper and drama work so well is that the kids aren't given grades in those activities.
I know, that sounds wrong. We're supposed to push kids toward excellence, and how do you do that without rewarding excellent work and punishing goofing off? But what grades actually do is make kids afraid.
In order to learn, you have to be willing to take risks. It's really hard to do that in an environment in which a risk that doesn't pay off gets an F.
I was a high school computer science teacher long ago, before computers took over the world, and so the school viewed computing as an optional extra, just like drama. So they let me get away with not giving grades. The result was a computer lab full of kids driving themselves hard. And I could tell a kid "you're going about this all wrong" without the kid hearing "you get an F."
Once a kid said to me, "I wish you gave grades, because you'd be giving me an A and that would help my average." I replied, "I could do that, but in order to make it fair I'd have to have all of you writing the same program at the same time." He said, "Never mind."
Freedom, not grades, is what motivates kids.
I have lots more stories to tell, but I can't do it in the remaining 217 characters. :-(
37
My first-year students all say they "had a blast" in high school: Sports, theater, trips etc.
Alas, they can not write a half-decent paragraph, they are not sure if the Korean conflict was before or after WWII, and as for finding anything on the map --- forget about it.
How about some teaching in K-12?
44
Life is mostly boring. Jobs are extremely boring. Bill paying and tax filing are excruciatingly boring. That’s adulthood.
27
How do you do deep, authentic experiments and projects if you don't know anything about the field?? My kids always hated those supposedly authentic and exciting group projects because they knew they were hollow and a sham. You need to know something first.
31
Somewhere back in the foggy reaches of the past, a French commentator once quipped: "[P]lus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." It turns out that his pithy quip has withstood the test of time, and is especially apropos of that ever so convenient target of people's self-righteous wrath, public education.
Indeed, wasn't it the Hibernian misanthrope Edmund Burke who warned that "learning will be cast into the mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude?" And didn't the Gilded-Age gadfly Mark Twain proclaim, perhaps apocryphally, that he "never let schooling interfere with [his] education?"
Now in modern and post-modern times, making education the butt of the public's high-pitched, "critical," whining continues apace. In the late '30s, David Ludlum. on whom this paper bestowed the accolade of being the foremost "historian of America's weather," published his doctoral dissertation, which is a harsh, critical assessment of Vermont's state educational system. Ludlum's contemporary, Bel Kaufman, published her acclaimed novel, "Up the down staircase," in 1964. Tho' ostensibly fictional, Kaufman's work is an autobiographical account of her experience as a teacher in New York City's public schools. Two years later, Paul Goodman's provocative if not outright defiant "Compulsory miseducation and the community of scholars" came off the presses.
Now Mehta and Fine join the ranks of education's critical critics.
As that Frenchman once said: "plus ça change..."
6
School is a preparation for life. Life often is boring, so school can't be always non-boring. Teachers would need much deeper training in their subject matter and would have to be treated as adults by the school administration. Teachers should also not be the ones who drive the crappiest cars on the school parking lot.
If the extracurricular excitement catches the attention of politicians and career educators, it will be made a universal requirement attracting the consulting and test-prep industry, and it will be formalized beyond recognition so that it can become boring and stultifying. The authors do not seem to be familiar with the check-off-for-college-application mentality of some high schoolers (and their parents).
Just as there are different learner types, there are different teacher types. Some teachers are excellent lecturers, others are great at motivating students to do stuff, but may not be very firm in their grasp of the material. Students should get used to differing modes of presentation. New approaches always work best while new.
Schools have to find a way to balance their baby-sitting function with their learning function. At this point, the non-academic aspects seem to outweigh the academic ones more often than not. Children and teenagers are shielded in school from material which is readily accessible in their daily lives.
As a goal, students should be able to write clearly. Many can persuade, bot not be clear. Schools must teach the latter.
10
It is meaningless to compare 5th graders to 11th graders without accounting for the fact that 5th graders essentially lack and 11th graders have a great abundance of sexual hormones.
2
As a substitute teacher I once took a day job in a radio production class. This was in what was perhaps the poorest school in the city. We had no radio equipment to use. All we had were our imaginations. I ensconced myself inside of an invisible radio control booth, held on to my fake headset and turned the fake dials as I had the kids sit with each other and talk live "on the air."
The host of the "show" was phenomenal and all of the kids participated who would have otherwise been dead bored. At one point an African-American boy playing hooky from where he was supposed to be just waltzed on into my class with no regard to me to pretty much do whatever he wanted. He had no idea he was on a "radio show." He used the F word several times loudly as he completely ignored me. I went frantic turning the fake knobs in the fake control room at every F word and everybody laughed. I never broke the fiction. The king was perplexed. He suddenly realized where he was and joined the conversation.
The kid was hard core "street," mind you, the type who seems not to care about anything, but he stayed and gave a phenomenal performance whereas a moment before would have been pegged as just another delinquent wannabe to anybody else. In fact, he was a natural talent.
Ian McCewan said that "true intelligence requires great imagination." This is the definition of Authentic Learning and this is what we must institute in every school in America on Monday morning. Don't wait.
3
A kindergarten teacher I knew was fired after arguing with the principal. The teacher's kids were coloring with a large collection of colored crayons; and the principal told him that it would confuse them to use more than five colors at a time (though the kids loved the increased choice). Narrow, standardized slot thinking starts very early.
11
America’s public schools definitely have their flaws, but they also have the potential to be much more than factories for the indoctrination of chattel labor. Most children soak up information like sponges, it’s just a matter of proper intellectual engagement, which is entirely subjective.
“Covering content almost always won out over deeper inquiry — the Crusades got a week; the Cold War, two days.”
Suddenly, so much of our geopolitical fugue state is starting to make sense.
4
Highest School Doesn't Have to Be Boring? Try convincing me and millions of others of that.
I am not a recent grad. It was in Tulsa, Oklahoma Class of 1970. Each day was eight hours of general anesthesia with unmotivated educators droning on how they could make higher salaries if they moved to California.
Entering college was like coming out of a dark tunnel into the light of day. Motivated professors and students and finally something worth living and working for.
God help the students today where political correctness rules. I never even went back for a reunion.
7
When I was in high school in LA, my family from one very good school district to another that I initially thought was terrible. In the latter I became unruly and wasted lot of time, particularly after I got my driver's license. In retrospect I am grateful that i graduated from the interior school in a lower-class neighborhood. The guys were more interesting, the girls still memorable, and my conflicts with teachers reek with literary value. Of course, in those days, the SATs were not rigged and though my family were poor immigrants, I could still get into a first rate college.
2
I went to an excellent public high school that had music, theater, sports, and even a ski school. It was a rarity. I was also aware that all the kids going to the private school Lakeside (like Bill Gates) down the street would always be ahead of me in college selection, and ultimately career choices. It's too bad how wealthy your parents are will determine where you end up, in most cases. We don't live in a classless society. The quality of your education is almost always based on your parents income.
5
As a special education teacher I agree that fewer students would really help the teacher. My high school English students all had learning disabilities and I was required to take them through the most boring curriculum imaginable. There was no time for debate and they had to fill out worksheets. Ugh! So for their last term I had them create a social project related to the environment, which meant research, persuasive writing, photos, power point presentations and a presentation of the final project to the class. The students, who did have access to computers at home, did all the work in class, taking turns on the few old computers I had available. In spite of this the students were engaged and excited about what they were doing. Our teacher-student relationship also deepened, because they were in charge and I was merely coaching them through it. But this only worked because I had a very small class. Numbers matter.
5
Students need to become responsible at a much earlier age. Locking them up in a building or complex of buildings for 6-8 hours per day isn't helping. High schools need to return to specialization, like until the mid-1970s, where urban high schools specialized in carpentry, plumbing, electronics, music, arts, etc.
2
As a high school social studies teacher in a high needs district for over 29 years, I take strong exception to two statements that demonstrate the authors’ elitist bias. The first: the need for parents who ask what their child is interested in rather than what they got on the test. I’ll take parents who ask about ANYTHING. Too often they’re working multiple
Jobs or commuting long distances to make
Just enough money to get by to have any energy to ask questions at all. The second statement talks about what students will need “in college and beyond.” Not everybody wants to or should go to college but their abilities and wishes are as legitimate as the college-bound and should be respected in designing an educational program. Together the two statements tell me these authors share the problem of so many so-called reformers who don’t spend extended time with students or teachers — they are elitist beyond belief, making their so-called solutions totally meaningless for any student who is not already in the upper middle class or above.
32
@Barbara
I too work in a high needs school—couldn’t agree more with what you said.
3
They are bored because the pedagogy is boring. Teachers who are engaging are crushed or fired by a self-propagating system of institutionalized bureaucracy that hires crushingly boring bureaucrats to support and propagate itself. Students require energy, disruption, challenge, and discomfort ( a word thrown about today as anathema when it is the very spark of intellectual and creative growth, i.e. real learning). Currently most schools in this country exist to house students during the day so that their parents can work, knowing that most of their progeny will be, at least, safe for eight hours. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, as a PSA poster once stated. How ironic that we are wasting the most creative years of these kids minds, preparing them to sit in cubicles and report to other bureaucrats for the rest of their lives. No surprise that many of our most successful startups have been hatched by people who rejected this soul crushing system and escaped while they still had their brain intact.
Change will require a revolution and mass firings of principals, school boards, etc. as well as tenured union protected entrenched "teachers". Change will require the elimination of standardized tests, "no child left behind" and other idiocy that imprisons out teachers and students like the bricks in Poe's famous story, 'The Cask of Amontillado'. Otherwise we are doomed to continue to toss our best young minds into prison to rot.
51
@Bruce Becker
I agree wholeheartedly. The biggest issue is the control of education by politicians who see it the same way they see trade balances or job creation. It is neoliberalism applied to education. Jurisdictions are all competing to see who can get the higher test scores. When education and learning is reduced to "measurables", then teachers are forced to teach things that can be measured against other things. All assessments must be the same so we can tell who is doing better and which school/teacher can be called out as lacking. Indeed, it's like working in a totalitarian regime.
15
@Bruce Becker The reason your first fantasy, that creative teachers are routinely fired from public schools, is untrue is because one of your later fantasies, that union protections are a bad thing, is also untrue. It's precisely those union protections that, in some cases where principals aren't terribly competent, protect those good teachers while still allowing the firing of those who really aren't doing their jobs.
35
@Bruce Becker - Yes! You're describing an entire system whose Dickensian ancestor is the character of the dreadful Mr. Gradgrind in the Charles Dickens novel "Hard Times". Blimey, nothing has changed! (pace the Unions, - we can't blame it all on the teachers!)
3
Each year the city sent me ninety gifts....all freshmen, all very bright, many had been skipped two years, most one. For lack of a better definition, I’d guess their IQs averaged 120. The final assessment was a conceptual essay....read blind. The first morning of classes one of my ‘good girls’ would look about and say, ‘what’s ‘he’ doing here? He’s trouble’. And they were. Had we taken only the recommendation of grade school teachers, the class would have been 80% female. That wonderful energy the ‘bad boys’ brought just needed a place to sing. There were two rules. Show up interested and interesting every day. Be polite to each and all. Oh, and show up on time. See rule two. There was no busy work. Only essays and reading....lots of reading. The focus was the literary hero. We read Gilgamesh, Lattimer’s Iliad, Fitzgerald’s Odyssey, the Popol Vuh, the Sundiata, Coyote Tales....along with Raglan, Leeming, Campbell, and Plato and Nietzsche. Then we took on the Tragic Hero and Othello. Ended the year with Chaucer in Middle English. Once we got the feeling for a hypothesis under control we wrote and argued. All reading and writing out of class, discussion in class. They sat on a stool and defended their positions. The rote parts...like the names and technical vocabulary was art work. Every third writing creative. Thing like another chapter for The Odyssey with ten lines of dactylic hexameter, a purpose or moral. We had fun. No teaching to any test.
7
@Jane Bidwell
What kind of school is this?
2
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/02/opinion/sunday/children-bored.html
I don't care if my students are bored. I teach fifth grade and tell my kids all the time that if you are bored? Pick up a book because life can be boring.
I teach them the virtues of hard work, managing time wisely and moving forward.
They can Google everything else.
11
How many times does this article have to be rewritten by yet another scholar and practitioner? What they say has been said over and over. Ironic that the NY Times prints this op-ed when its education reporters cast aspersions on the kinds of innovation they discuss and the Times Editorials have supported the so called accountability programs that lead to disengaged teachers and students. Or they extoll the "successful" charters that have zero tolerance everything policies that are certainly not "design studios." Think of who gets educated this way--not the children of the wealthy, who attend schools with small classes and are free from the accountability and state exams that imprison public schools. This is another example of structured inequality. I am so tired of reading the same old story.
10
I was in debate in high school and competed in many competitions. It required oratory, logic, and presentation.
Today the debate practice is junk. The rapid fire speaking makes no sense and is an insult to the idea of debate.
Junk the junk and get back to real debate.
1
Debate? My son does extracurricular debate and the last thing his teachers want is his con opinion to their pro. Our high school does not want anything other than their left-leaning beliefs voiced on campus a real group-think kind of place. Anything else is considered racist or sexist and whateverist.
They've tried an experiential program but it ended up being a place where unmotivated kids could get away with doing less and getting honors credit. So they are doing away with honors rather than revamping the program.
I think the boredom is because they feel they are on the cusp of adulthood and are just in the waiting room...
4
@MomT God forbid your kid has to deal with the educators "left-leaning" (probably more accurately "fact-based") opinions. Must be tough.
You should homeschool him. Everybody would be happier. He'd probably learn a lot less, but that sounds like it'd be part of what would make you happy.
8
I certainly would resist the idea to "remake the American high school" based on your anecdotes. Sure, you will encounter kids who are excited by what they do in extracurricular activities. As the kids used to say, "Duh." But what is their knowledge about anything else? You don't say. Just that kids are more excited by what they do outside the classroom than what they do in class. I'm not sure when the idea took hold that school should be "fun." It's greatly mistaken. Just wait till you have to work for a living. Also, you kids get off my lawn!
9
Part I:
Here's a portion of the Graduation Exam for Eighth Grade, in 1895, Saline County, Kansas:
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts. per bu, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10.Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
9
To all who want to pile on against the acquisition of knowledge: It it difficult to apply information one has never acquired, or to analyze in the absence of data. Somewhere, a balance between input and output must be found, and learning happens. I think too that we romanticize education in America. And we talk incessantly about thinking "outside the box" and yet we are dealing with a generation of school aged students who find it "awkward" to interact with people and ideas who might upset them. Recently, one of my very brightest 11th grade students was discussing a project she was doing, which involved (her) teaching the 1930s. She was very worried about an image she chose for her power point because it had a swastika -- on an armband worn by Hitler. Should she use it? It was upsetting to her. I didn't know exactly what to say. She had complete freedom to select whatever images she wanted. Should she leave out the visual symbol? National socialism was virulently anti-Semitic. Hitler was always pictured with that armband after a certain point. It wasn't a picture of naked victims at a concentration camp. And yet ... My point is that education is complicated, and reductionist thinking and answers aren't helpful. What knowledge DO students need to be empowered to use it?
6
@Teacher Bravo for your insight that there is nothing evil about knowledge acquisition.
2
I thought the research timely, the focus on the 'extra' curricular classes was an interesting and compelling read. Too often these classes are the first to go.
However, "Bored" in the adolescent and even the adult should never be taken at face value.
It is the slightly more erudite cousin of, "this class is stupid."
Bored means the student does not understand the work. This can be because a student in intro physics or trigonometry does not have a solid grasp of algebra, or in a subject such as English, a failure to grasp basic grammar structure, etc. on the part of student or teacher. So in the humanities it is a defense mechanism against subjective behavior and grading. The arts are just as faceted and rigid as sciences, but are seldom taught as such, or by those even educated in those fields. Rather a 'degree' in education is preferred and with premade lesson plans and a lab on computer, all to save money.
'Bored' should be read as, "report a social and emotional defense mechanism to mask fear of failure."
56
This resonates with my experiences both as a student many years ago and as a mentor/coach in recent years. Let me add one more benefit that I have observed. Unlike classrooms, which are often highly segregated, well-run extracurriculars tend to bring students into closer contact with people of different races, cultures, economic means, and talent levels teaching them how to work together for a common purpose. You want to change the world, become a mentor. It will change the lives of young people and yours.
2
As a teacher with 34 years experience in high school classrooms, I’ve come to the conclusion that education at any and all levels can and should be as much fun as possible.
We all know we learn more when we enjoy what we’re doing and much less when we dislike it.
Rigour and boredom are not synonymous.
3
Rigor? What's that? I have been teaching in America's public schools for over 25 years and even served a stint abroad. Americans are now more concerned with the comfort of the student than challenging them with rigor.
10
In high school I failed courses and cut classes until I joined the mixed chorus.
I was transformed through that experience, learning the power of the group (I certainly sounded better with other tenors than in the bath) and the value of dedicated work.
Now in my 80s and an award winning author and retired university professor, I attribute my experience in the mixed chorus as central to my successful trek through adolescence.
4
@Anthro Bill Would you have suggested (or, perhaps more importantly, would you suggest now) that it was the school's fault you were cutting classes and failing? I don't get the impression that your classes changed, being reorganized to be more like your chorus activity. I get the impression your approach changed, and that's what led to your later success.
And that's great. But that's not what this op-ed is suggesting.
1
Unfortunately, international tests have revealed that U.S students entering high school ranked about 19th academically. At what age do the options and choices cited in this article start? I remember in middle school, we had a mandatory weekly hour of "Clubs" with choices from French to opera to theater taught by passionate teachers. But this activity was held between 3-4pm after the regular school day and wouldn't be possible now in most public schools.
1
This Op/ Ed speaks to why “the other half of education”, extra curricular and co-curricular programs keep so many students in school.
In activities like drama, debate, mock trial, Future Farmers, etc students become engaged in what they see as relevant participation in programs affecting their futures.
In many respects these competitive activities mirror athletics in that competition plays a substantive part of the activity. For a debate student attending a tournament, walking into a classroom to debate another high school with a neutral critic judge evaluating her performance, is empowering and exciting.
High schools need balance in their academic offerings and this study by the authors ought to be a guide to every school district in the United States.
2
The article is absolutely correct. If the main priority of a school system is that the students do well on a fact based test then that is exactly what they will get. That might be all they get.
I taught for 25 years at magnet school with students whose IQ's were higher than mine. Many of us decided early on that the students were smart enough to pick up the facts along the way so we spent more time coordinating projects, debates, dramatic productions, role playing and problem solving. We could have done more if not nagged by the upcoming AP test but we did what we could.
I know teachers who have been praised for drilling students to high scores on state tests but I also discovered a lot of those kids don't know what they just learned.
4
though an advocate for the extra-curricular, in fact trying to make those activities more curricular (the critical habits of mind at work in acting and directing apply across the catalog, for only one example) the notion that "...In lower-level courses, students were often largely disengaged; in honors courses, students scrambled for grades at the expense of intellectual curiosity," is by no means an excuse to look to the "extras," it is a challenge to be met in all ways: teacher training, pedagogical method, school administration, etc,
A lot of teachers I've talked to said what they teach in their classes is now largely confined to and dictated by state mandatory testing. They have little time or freedom to try to make classes more interesting, as they are forced to "teach to the test".
They also are pretty much against national educational curriculum standards as they feel that will add yet another layer of mandated curriculum and testing.
7
When students are engaged in real work, for example collaborating with community and professional partners to reduce risk from climate change threats, then the "boring stuff" they might have forgotten has meaning. Let's think about a new curriculum based on global and local challenges. Using design thinking enhances students' skills and confidence, and provides the reason for learning content and doing practice with meaningful intent.
2
For science the Japanese realized many years ago that hands-on labs (e.g. electronics, computers, biology) - even before teaching the theory - engaged students more. But books are cheaper than equipment, so not all US schools offer the lab work.
2
Montessori. Montessori. Montessori. Hands on learning is key. Students are merely being used for data mining for these fake tests, and they know it. Parents, students and teachers must opt out of the tests. Drama, debate, Art, music, analyzing literature, creative writing, science experiments are the essence of education, along with mandatory foreign language, taught in an immersive way. You notice I didn’t mention “math.” College entrance exams are a joke.
2
Much of learning is rote and boring but once you have a base you can build on it. If you haven't got a base well... then it's all a lot harder.
Why for instance don't we start with teaching a second language in school, early, when children are most able to become bilingual. I don't mean learning Spanish, America's default to out of necessity second tongue here either. Consider another world contender or rarity language such as Chinese, Russian(or another Slavic tongue, or a Scandinavian one), or French or German. Most of the Europeans speak English. Are they all so bored while learning it? Or maybe they are more ambitious and want to get ahead while we here in the US are quick with lots of discussions and excuses. Or maybe we have been so privileged that we are - simply put - lazy.
8
This article, while insightful and eloquent in places, rests on three essential fallacies: (1) that boring things are necessarily bad; (2) that if students don't look and act excited on the surface, they are bored (or something else is wrong); and (3) that schools would become meaningful and vibrant if the fringe experience were turned into the norm. It's fairly easy to counter the first two fallacies (or at least to see the error in them), so I'll focus on the last. In my experience, the "fringe" of a curriculum depends on a solid center. If I can't play the cello in tune, it matters little how many creative ideas I have. To play in tune and rhythm, with good tone and texture, I have to be willing to do some relatively boring things for a long time: play scales and arpeggios, slowly work out technical difficulties, and build my repertoire, even when it includes pieces I would not have chosen on my own. But if, in addition to such practicing (and within it, too), I allow myself to choose, interpret, compose, or arrange pieces, then the "boring" work will serve the rest. Something similar can be said for a school curriculum: some of it is by necessity "boring" (in the sense that there are some things that just have to be learned). Getting rid of those things would be a great mistake. But those "boring" things can support inquisitive and creative endeavors, rather than stand in their way.
55
@Diana Senechal As a 29-year veteran high-school teacher, I thank you for your reasoned response to this article. While there is much to agree with in the original article, it conflates an important distinction: there is a difference between saying "high school is boring" and "high school students are bored." The first places the entire onus on those who structure and deliver instruction (much of which is merited) and assumes that some activities or ways of learning are inherently "boring," while the second assertion recognizes that whether one finds the school experience "boring" also rests with the learner. I teach some 80 students daily--some bring an intellectual curiosity to the classroom while others don't, and they've all attended the same schools for the past 12 years. There are some students who will learn no matter how you structure their experience, some who will benefit from different approaches, and some who bring little curiosity...and as the letter-poster asserts, some things that we call "boring" are necessary stepping-stones to a more "inquisitive and creative" approach.
16
As a child who happened to have acquired literacy early, I remember my first eight years of school as painfully boring, having to wait while the slowest learner in the class puzzled through a text I could do quickly. Then, in my first year of high school, I was given an I.Q. test & put a year ahead in classes which was a great relief. I have since always wondered why students are arbitrarily grouped into grades by age, rather than ability.
3
"I have since always wondered why students are arbitrarily grouped into grades by age, rather than ability."
That should be obvious. It is much easier to classify a huge number of students "by age, rather than ability."
And IQ tests are unreliable and controversial.
3
I am concerned that we think that something must be entertaining in order to be interesting.
Math and science can be incredibly interesting and engaging, but they also require hard work and some of that hard work isn’t particularly fun. Some of it is repetitive and has to be done alone.
Project-based learning can be a wonderful way to engage students, to get them excited, and to help them see how concepts from different disciplines “fit together”. That said, it’s going to be awfully hard to learn calculus or physics or engineering if you haven’t developed a reasonable level of proficiency in basic algebra; it would be a little like trying to read “War and Peace” in the original Russian ... when you don’t know Russian.
We seem to understand that athletes have to practice and that some of that practice is repetitive work designed to develop skills. The same with musicians. Parts of academic learning are like that. I’m not saying it should all be like that, but it’s also not all going to be fun group projects.
34
"I am concerned that we think that something must be entertaining in order to be interesting."
The authors don't say anything about being "entertaining".
What they say is that certain "spaces" (electives, clubs, extracurriculars) are "lively, productive places where teachers and students engaged together in consequential work."
"Some of it [math and science work] is repetitive and has to be done alone."
What, specifically?
Perhaps “alone” wasn’t the best way to express the idea. At some point students need to be able to do math on their own without assistance from someone else.
To learn advanced math, physics, or engineering a student must have some degree of proficiency in expressing relationships between variables mathematically and in manipulating mathematical expressions. Some of that can be learned collaboratively, but true proficiency, in my opinion, is going to require a certain amount of individual practice. Think of it as the math equivalent of a basketball player practicing free throws or a pianist practicing scales. The reality is that this practice is going to be “boring” at times.
Your criticism that I overstated the authors’ point is valid. However, I stand by my point that some learning requires skill development that isn’t particularly “lively” and that some “boring” activities are necessary.
12
@TPM
Let me add one more thought.
When discussing the drama production, the authors focus on the collaborative, engaging parts of the process that are easy to see. They don’t talk about all the background work needed for the production to succeed. Someone had to sew the costumes. Someone built the sets. The actors had to learn their lines; which for most people requires a certain amount of repetition. Someone had to design and run the lighting and sound. Some of that background work is very detailed work that can be a bit tedious.
Again, I not saying that core academic classes shouldn’t be taught in an engaging way. I am saying that certain skills require individual practice and hard work that can be rewarding, but isn’t going to be obviously lively to an observer.
14
While our school system could use more project learning, I doubt the “this class/teacher is boring label will go away entirely.” It just takes some students longer than others to truly engage in learning and self-motivate, which all learning requires. I had little interest in classes, even the “fun” ones, until I reached the graduate level. Even the courses in my field did not hold my attention as an undergraduate. As a teacher, I loved the engaged students, but I also made it my responsibility to encourage those who were not as curious to keep learning. Sometimes I think we give up on students too soon, causing them to give up on themselves.
2
Vocational/Technical secondary schools attract and engage an increasing number of high school students in these parts.
Spend a day or two at any one of them to appreciate how they support aspirations and expectations of their students. Heartwarming.
5
I have been teaching for over 30 years. Teachers who use standardize testing to excuse poor teaching are a big part of the problem. Nothing indicates that teaching to the test is more productive than deep, imaginative learning. But we train teachers poorly, so they are bound to text book programs, answer keys, and sample test items. They lack their own imagination and do not understand learning, only what and how to teach content to get blocked in, framed answer production. The result is students who neither think or learn capably. Teachers will complain bitterly that this falls at their feet. They will claim they have no choice. But they do. We know that teachers who engage learners in deep understanding and allow students to practice far transfer will outscore students who were taught to the test. Teachers largely have that under their control. If they follow methods and programs that limit students thinking and eventually their engagement, they made the wrong choice, or more unfortunately, they never knew there was a better choice. In my mind, that is culpable ignorance.
7
This sounds like the standard nonsense spouted by education experts. There are students that do fine with structured learning from standard textbooks, of which I was one, and there are plenty of students that could not care less no matter what academics are presented to them. Have educators tried vocational training with a reduced emphasis on civics, math, science, and literature ? Maybe students would care about that because they knew it would get them a job. The article mentioned gender studies. Does any reasonable person think that kind of propaganda is going to help a teenager prepare for for in any possible way ?
5
Refuse the standardized tests. Push for hands-on, authentic learning opportunities. Don't have the high school principal or the superintendent or teachers incentivized to produce high test scores. This takes courage, but a community school envisioning event in my district revealed that everyone from the kids to the teachers to the administrators wanted this change--and they made it a priority.
We also need to look at h.s. graduation requirements. Go back to the days when there was deeper inquiry and less pressure to make kids fly through the curriculum at breakneck speed. BC Calculus? Really? Make it an online course and teach the few kids who are ready for that particular course the skills to take it online or travel to the local university to take it.
I'm so glad I went to a midwestern city's public schools in the hippie dippie 70s when slow education that made us take deep dives was the norm K-12.
5
An issue that's not addressed in this article is how many teachers feel threatened by bright students. We do pick up on it and some of us dumb ourselves down while others go on to make trouble. All of us understood the necessity of learning but we didn't understand why some of our teachers delighted in humiliating us. No one likes to be humiliated, talked down to, or treated as if their questions are stupid. Yet in the interests of getting the lesson completed in the allotted time all of these ploys were and are used.
We understood the reasons for memorizing multiplication tables. We understood why we had to learn to read, to spell, etc. But what wasn't understandable was why we rarely got the chance to study topics in depth, ask questions, come up with answers that weren't what the teacher(s) wanted, and feel like we'd mastered the material. Yes, learning can be boring but it shouldn't be stultifying to the point where we no longer want to learn. All too often students of all ages complain about that.
3
@hen3ry I suspect that there's a lot of intersection between kids who think the teachers are picking on them because they're smarter than the teachers and anti-vaxxers who've "done the research."
2
Amen. When I attended high school years ago, I was lucky. Lucky because I had started school early, as a child, and then later skipped a grade. This meant I got through high school two years ahead of my age group -- which enabled me to outrun the speed of boredom.
By one's early to mid-teens, just about anybody will start to grow weary of sitting in classes all day and doing conventional coursework. In my case, I felt my attention slipping badly at age 15. Class had become a time for passing around funny notes, or flirting or sneak-reading or daydreaming. Fortunately, by that time I was already in my senior year. If I'd had to stick around to age 17 or 18 my grades would've suffered far worse than they did. Again: lucky, so lucky, to get out in the nick of time.
And yes, the authors are right about the extracurriculars. The things I recall fondly to this day were working on the school newspaper, drama club, the chess team, the baseball team ...
It is long past time to change the system.
4
I despair. Mehta and Fine, lovely people, I'm sure, are recycling an ancient idea: get students excited by making school relevant to their interests and to the real world. How could this possibly be wrong? Except that it's been tried, over and over, for nearly 100 yrs.
In 1921, A.S. Neill opened a "democratic" boarding school, in England, called Summerhill. There is a fair amount of literature on this. There was at least one similar experimental school, in New England, a decade or two later. The name escapes me, sorry. There have been others.
The results of all these experimental schools can most charitably be characterized as mixed. They don't scale, and most closed.
Personally, I think the basic concept of the high school is wrong and we ought to give it up. It's a farce, really. And the proof of that is that the remediation rate, in math and reading, for students matriculating for the first time in four-year baccalauriate-granting colleges is now around 50%. You read that right, half of high school graduated, college-bound students cannot read or calculate at the 12th grade level.
There is an obvious public policy solution. Education should be compulsory through grade eight. Upon finishing, they all get their working papers. High school must be purely voluntary.
It is past time to pull the plug on a failed institution.
2
A far more important distinction about those clubs: they're voluntary. Only the kids who want to be there are there.
In places where most of the kids show up to school, behave, and do their work, everyone acknowledges those are excellent schools. Nobody's looking to fix those, because the schools aren't doing anything wrong. Neither are the schools where most of the kids don't do that, but as a society, we usually pretend otherwise. The real problem there is the families and the student apathy they produce.
You won't get very far ceding direction and authority to students who've got no interest in doing anything with it. Though, admittedly, you're right that it works pretty well to do it with those who ARE motivated.
9
Mehta and Fine are so right--and so you know that what they suggest will never find its way into a large number of high school classrooms.
And that is because, fundamentally, those oligarchs who really control how our society is set up don't want people to become educated through experience, don't want people to have opportunities to follow their natural curiosities, and certainly don't want people thinking creatively outside the box, because if people did, they might challenge every single status quo assumption, might create things that compete with the economic models that certain people do very well under, or might decide to reorder society entirely to a very different set of values.
The purpose of the institutional high school education is not to allow for that--it is to tamp any tendencies towards that down, to produce cogs that fit well into the current machine, to produce people who will conform and who won't query seriously.
Bosses want to multiply subordinates--not rivals. And they want to make sure those subordinates don't have any other models to consider and choose from.
6
I'm a high school teacher. And I'm not preparing students to be drones. I want students to soar, think and be prepared for the world that is changing.
5
@Kahl I don't think very many teachers are interested in producing drones.
But I do think that oligarchs who want to tear down and privatize our education system are happy to hear the sort of education-bashing in the original comment.
5
@Glenn Ribotsky
There's no teacher bashing here.
Teachers are not the ones setting up the repressive system.
They often try to fight against it. But, generally, at some higher level, they eventually get slapped down, whether it's by administrators, local and state education boards, or politicians afraid of taxpayer revolts.
Because, again, the point of education is different for educators than it is for more pernicious societal interests.
3
I couldn’t agree with authors more. I was fortunate to work in a Massachusetts high school (Lincoln-Sudbury) that took many of their points to heart.
From the perspective of this 35-year veteran of the public school classroom, here is what improving history instruction and making it exciting might look like: “Bringing History Home- A Classroom Teacher’s Quest to Make the Past Matter”. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475846645/Bringing-History-Home-A-Classroom-Teacher's-Quest-to-Make-the-Past-Matter
2
Part II:
Those are only two of five sections to the test. Could you pass it?
How many people do you know that could pass?
The people who had an 'Eighth Grade Education' in 1895 were pretty well educated teen-agers, don't you agree?
No doubt high school students are 'bored' with school. Their as-yet-underdeveloped brains crave stimulation, emotional excitement, and gratification. Perfectly normal. But they need some discipline, too, either self-imposed or imposed by a Thoughtful, Respectful, Kind, and Intelligent outside authority... Not 'just another brick in the wall'.
Uneducated people are a drag on the economy. Uneducated voters are easily deceived, and make Drastic Mistakes in whom they elect. And things just get worse from there.
Electives in high school are Absolutely Fabulous! But students must learn the rules of grammar and the multiplication tables, too. Just tell them a great videographer needs to know how to count his money and make good investments and a screenwriter needs to know how to construct an effective paragraph.... And read a book, now and then.
5
Seems to me the biggest problem in education in America is two allied forces, namely education vendors and academic educators.
Education vendors want taxpayer money. They create a product and try to sell it to districts. These include curricula, software, assessments, etc. Sometimes, teachers bring in these vendors out of sincere interest, individually or as departments. Other times, like so many sellers, the vendors lobby politicians to smooth the way for the transaction - even if the product is poorly designed or inappropriate or unwanted by teachers.
Academic educators are not K-12 teachers. They are college and university professors, or writers with education experience or degrees. They want to publish articles, write books, attend conferences, and expand their CVs. They want academic fame. Sometimes, they have brilliant ideas. Other times, they publish little more than opinion pieces, poorly designed studies, and use fraudulent statistics to support their hypotheses. And they rarely get caught, if they do.
Consider the intersection of these two forces. Vendors get their products legitimized by academics. Academics get their names published, go to conferences sponsored by vendors, and research data.
There's one hitch: in order to be profitable, there must always be a new product to sell. This means a new curriculum, new software, a new paradigm for education, which means more papers, conferences, etc.
Re: the article. Who are you shilling for now?
6
"The excitement many classrooms lack."
The solution is not add ons, though the ability to choose extras like debate and drama is an integral part of being an adult--the power to choose, so it for sure adds joy to those chalkly years.
Nonetheless, having suffered, painfully, through 12 plus years of boring classrooms, i am pretty sure that the problem could be solved by reconstructing teaching at the K-12 level into a much more respected professions...by paying alot more, and making it a hard job to get into with better educational and apprenticeship requirements. Give IQ tests and search out people with enthusiasm.
Go to a cocktail party anywhere in Upper Middle Class Urban Amerika, and find out what happens when people ask you, so, what do you do, and you say , "I am a Jr. High English teacher" or, worse, "I teach third grade."
USA ain't the only country where teaching is poorly respected, but it should not be a country where teaching is not respected. We care far more about the military, and yet, the term Military Intelligence is a famous comedic oxymoron.
4
Drama and debate don’t need to be add-ons. You can have a special debate project in any class, and you can do a drama skit in any class, as well. It’s called integrating the curriculum. We have denigrated “vocational” to the point where we degrade people who work with their hands. We push college so that predatory colleges (and this includes our precious Ivy League), can make money from tuition and loans. All students should be able to take cooking, shop, dress design, gardening or other so-called vocational classes as electives. Both boys are girls should be able to use a wrench and perform basic plumbing or create a meal. They will use these skills later in life. And more physical activity, please. Kids need to move.
3
The great thing about Debate class is that you have to learn both sides of an issue and be prepared to debate both sides, even if you do not agree with the debate question. What a wonderful world we would have if people understood there are two sides not just their own.
6
Maybe today's high schools could find ways to raise the standards of excellence and passing-the-course especially in English grammar, spoken and written.
"Me and my friend/family" went to the mall.
When I go home I "lay down."
He "drugged" the person/object across the yard.
We don't know where he is "at."
The unnecessary and incorrect inclusion of that preposition (of) following an adjective. "Of"follows nouns.
Then there are the peculiar pronunciations: "route" so it rhymes with "rout"
The indefinite article like the first letter of the alphabet (placing emphasis on it rather than the noun that follows)
"Caramel" as if the word never existed until that peculiar commercial for a German candy brand aired on TV about 15 years ago.
These deserve a well earned and permanent rest from spoken American English. They creep farther and farther into the language. It has become routine to hear well paid educated experts in various fields using these.
While this most likely is not the sort of excitement high schools are seeking, it will produce a generation of television announcers and shopping channel hosts whose parents will beam with pride.
1
Wow, I just recently had a conversation with a friend about how I can't wait to teach my new elective class because I will be able to escape the micromanagement that the administration in my school has forced upon us teachers in our core classes.
5
I was on the debate team in high school and loved every minute. This is where I truly learned how to research, document and use a library. It is also where you learn to see (and argue) both sides of a topic, something we could use these days. Best of all, we got out of our tiny town and traveled to college campuses for our debates. It was during those travels to campuses that I realized "Gee, I think I want to go here." No one in my family had gone to college. Debate is what gave me the idea.
6
"LEARNING IS NOT VALUED" ?
TRY TEACHERS ARE NOT VALUED.
I left teaching because I could not pay the bills. I loved the kids. I loved the challenge. I loved the chance to make a difference.
So I left and became valued in the private sector-much more respect , much more money, and made some difference for companies that sought my insights and positive attitude. I was rewarded.
The system chased me away.
Debate and drama are great opportunities to learn diverse skills. But there is much more to learn and many more subjects to tackle. And those processes are hard and succeeding in those subject areas can be daunting. That is where the creative, pro-active teacher comes into play.....if you can find them and keep them.
I missed teaching but I had to be pragmatic and take care of my family .
19
To produce better teachers, here is my modest proposal:
After completing their training (including student teaching), all teacher-candidates should do one year of stand-up comedy -even tour the country.
"Why?", you may ask.
Aside from the obvious (to better develop a sense of humour), there are two things very necessary to the teaching profession honed in stand-up comedy:
1) How to establish stage presence, and lead & control the room.
2) And more importantly, how to handle hecklers.
PS: When it comes to teaching middle school, is there some real-world training on how to be a more effective sergeant? Or is that only a talent?
8
I wish I knew as a child what I knew now. "Work" is a never-ending debate with peers and superiors about strategy, investments, priorities, resourcing, and funding. Participating in Debate in high school would have been so valuable, but I had no idea at the time. Not to mention the confidence it would have built for me.
3
Ah, yes, extracurriculars. They are great, wonderful, engaging . . . and self-selecting, hence the extracurricular term. Students at my school who are in Model United Nations (MUN) absolutely love it and spend much time researching, writing, and debating in preparation for and while attending conferences, conferences that require them to spend days in a hotel at their own expense or at the expense of our PTA. The reports they write follow a format designed by MUN; their debates are set up by someone else. That's not a complaint at all; it's the way the organization functions. When I've done MUN-like simulations in my classroom, some students blossom while others with little background information, no interest in research, and public speaking anxiety wither. That's why they're not in MUN.
We need to stop pretending that one thing will save education. It won't. Educating our young people is a complex endeavor that depends on culture, parent attitudes, finances (family, school, and district), interests, skills, background, politics, and more.
22
I advise or coach several academic teams at my middle school - and also did so when I taught high school. Unmentioned was that the students that volunteer for extracurricular academics are motivated, smart, curious and already interested in those subjects. Not a single malcontent in the group. With weekly practices there is increasing energy as the day of the state competition nears - and if one wins they can advance to nationals. No administrator cares what happens in my room after school and they leave me alone. Interestingly, the media never shows up at the national NSB Science Bowl or NRC Envirothon or MathCounts to showcase our best and brightest students. I guess only those running the competitions have an interest in providing these high level academic challenges.
19
Maybe a good start would be to insist that our math and science teachers have actual degrees in - you know - math and science.
Currently less that half have any post secondary education in STEM despite the fact they teach STEM.
I recall explaining terminal velocity to my grade 9 teacher and that the penny dropped off the Empire State building would not accelerate all of the way to the sidewalk.
9
@SteveRR Qualified secondary teachers have post-secondary training in their subject areas. All of them.
However, as a society, we've made teaching such an unattractive profession that we can't fill the jobs with qualified applicants, which necessitates, increasingly often, having teachers teach classes outside their subject or just flat-out hiring in unqualified people, whether we call the subs, teachers on emergency certification, Teach for America corps members, or some other euphemism for "unqualified."
4
1) Clubs are voluntary, so you already have kids there who are interested. I'll bet if you made kids enroll, that would change things.
2) Teachers are overworked and underpaid.
3) Clubs don't actually have to cover any content at all, so they can make things interesting and spend more time on them. There are also no standardized tests at the end.
Yes, clubs and activities are wonderful. I've run some in schools during two decades in the profession. But there are some significant challenges with using clubs as a model. And, I 100% agree that schools are often boring and classes painful for unengaged kids.
7
@Guy Sajer Key detail: "for unengaged kids."
Anything is boring if you're dead set against paying it any attention.
3
The key is to do the important work of merging the basic with the extraordinary.
That is very hard work, done by the best and most innovative teachers.
The answer is to fund and respect the profession in teaching, encouraging innovation, but only when it gets better at teaching basics.
4
While I agree that there is a real need to do something about K-12 education, I am not sure that the answer is more "extracurricular activities". Debate team may provide "family" but it also tends to emphasize form over content. I teach at a supposedly "selective" private college where students are encouraged to think globally. Last term I was standing in the heart of campus talking with a colleague. i bet him that the next student who walked by couldn't name 2 countries bordering Afghanistan. I won. Likewise the next. Over and over. After 18 years of war in Afghanistan. No clue. How can students "think globally" if they have to Google basic information? Twenty years ago Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure was good fun. now it is reality, except that students don't even know that Napoleon is a "short dead French Dude, dude." Teachers are expected to be parents, health care providers, therapists, and, oh yeah, teachers to dozens and dozens of students every day. Parents, start parenting. Villages, start being villages.
10
As I worked my way through this it was with a smile: I id high school debate for 4 years and then 2 years in coolege. I went to a terrible high school. But I went to a top 10 college and top 3 law school -- and even then, found that, apart from law school, debate was even more valuable than college.
But then I got to what the authors describe as debate today: students arguing about subjects they care about -- one a month,. Debate used to be about an important subject you didn't choose,e you debated 3 timesavers Saturday for 6 months, not once a month. So even that is watered down. And if that is what is "good" today, it shows bad bad things are, even if what used to be highly demanding extracurricular activities.
3
But jobs in the post high school and post college life are overall pretty boring too. Maybe the educational system criticized here is just the training ground, a preview, a hands on experience of what lays ahead. Schoolrooms are a training ground to learn how to deal with boring dull jobs in cubicles, bureaucracy, K-12 education, service economy, etc. Learn and repeat. Follow orders. Do not innovate (except in a small sector of the job economy).
3
You want engaged students? Try teaching them personal finance using simulations, hands-on activities and sending them out to the web to do their own research on fin tech apps. No one takes a personal finance class and wonders how the class applies to their life. A shame that only 1/6 of graduates leave high school with a course under their belt. Go to local school boards and principals and demand change!
7
My children attended a small Montessori school from first through eighth grade. The middle school curriculum was grounded in the recognition that young adolescents are at an age of increasing engagement with the world around them, and thus increasingly motivated by a desire to do "meaningful work." Our school chose to address this in part through a weekly "community lunch" where teams of students took turns planning, procuring and preparing a midday meal for their classmates. Teachers were available as guides and mentors, but the students themselves were in charge from start to finish. "Community Lunch" became the platform for exploring a host of issues and subjects -- nutrition and basic biochemistry; the geographical, cultural, religious & philosophical bases for various food choices & dietary restrictions; ecological, ethical and economic considerations around food production & distribution systems; group dynamics & problem solving; planning and working within a budget; comparison shopping; navigating the public transportation system; time management; basic math and chemistry involved in cooking and adapting recipes to feed 35 people . . .the list goes on. Everyone was engaged -- because if they weren't, the whole class went hungry. Meaningful work indeed! An extraordinarily rich and empowering learning experience, from the simple act of making lunch.
6
Group students by ability. It's that simple.
Yes, you'll have the better-parented kids ending up in the top level, but that is FAR better than having clearly unprepared students disrupting classes where the achievers could be receiving a top-notch education.
A high school teacher told me that ten percent of the students don't even want to be in school - yet those angry ones are present everywhere. Let's group them, too. These disruptors seem to represent all races, etc.
A bonus would be the teachers will be safer from physical attack by frustrated students feeling singled out because their previous education cheated them.
Fix society some other way than sacrificing the achieving half of our culture the education for which it is paying serious tax money.
6
Amen! As I reminisce [retired educator/coach at the college and high school levels] about my formal years as a student, I enthusiastically agree with the premise of this article. It’s the activities, athletic teams and extra-curricular endeavors that created the deepest passion and lasting memories. That is not to denigrate or criticize the effective classroom teachers we enjoyed. In fact, Joan Paulson (God rest her soul), an excellent Honors English teacher in Clintonville, Wis. had an extraordinary impact on my development, as a demanding but empathetic Forensics coach. Her expertise and insight as my mentor in the pressure-packed field of Extemporaneous speaking, was as meaningful and lasting as the effective football, basketball and baseball coaches we were privileged to have two generations ago. Indeed, anything that excites, challenges and teaches perseverance, passion, curiosity, humility and gratefulness is worth the investment. Teaching is an HONORABLE profession that touches the future.
5
As a teacher with over 25 years in the classroom, who believes curiosity is the truest motivator in learning, the fundamental wet blanket on educational innovation is the ongoing reality of effectively managing a large group of people. It’s a nearly impossible task to address the curiosity and passions of the individual learner while focused on directing 30 other people at the same time. Could go on forever about this topic....
13
Many of the excellent ideas for teaching in this article would fall under the banner of "authentic assignments;" that is, assignments that have a real audience, a real purpose, and are conducted in a real forum. Bring students to the real world and vice-versa, and you have an excellent principle for education. Instead, standardized tests and testing companies drive schools toward artificial learning and test prep. Authentic learning holds such greater promise.
5
I think the analysis in this article is too simplistic.
We have a kid who loved attending a hippie type progressive homeschool program during elementary but who subsequently, when back at public school, often seemed more engaged by the extracurriculars than the core curricular classes.
Interestingly, however, as a teenager she got a part time job--at an ice cream store, which involves plenty of serious work such as cleaning and even repairing machines and toilets, trouble-shooting the cash register, providing service with a smile, and filling rapidly an unexpected order for 200 handmade ice cream sandwiches.
That is all it took to enhance dramatically her zeal for chemistry, algebra, English, French, and other core academic subjects.
Yet she has also enjoyed the job and gained many good skills: being responsible in a business setting, not assuming that dealing with machines is "guy's" work, being a team player, handling sometimes difficult customers, managing her own income, etc.
And she has learned that "boring" is a relative term.
8
@UI
Did your daughter gain zeal for school because she realized how difficult work is without an education? Is that what you meant? Just curious. I also worked at an ice cream store as a teenager and although it was exciting and my first taste of responsibility, I experienced what an unskilled job was like and realized first hand -- not just my parents telling me -- what college could do for me.
4
@Amy
Hi, Amy--Thanks for asking. I guess ideally I'd have my daughter respond to you but I just picked her up after an 8 hour shift and think she went straight to bed!
But, yes, my perception is that spending hours on end doing a job that ultimately entails little intellectual challenge helps her think about her academic work as a means to a more satisfying long term career. One day she came home and said the new trainee was my age. So that obviously got her attention.
And I think working the job just helps her keep the so-called "boring" parts of high school in perspective. Maybe she'll never truly love making and working through flashcards to nail down her French verb tenses, but it's still more intellectually stimulating than scooping ice cream into pre-made take-home pints. Or, at least, it's boring in a way that has a larger purpose.
Also, it is relevant that we're an educated family living in a college town, and she had been fairly put off by how competitive the schools could seem--pressure to take AP classes, etc. So I think maybe somehow working the job helped her conceptualize a commitment to her own education as being different from just acting like the trained pet monkey who tries to jump through hoops because that's what's expected.
In the greater scheme, our kid has a lot of privilege. For far too many kids the problem absolutely is poorly funded, overcrowded, physically decrepit schools. Or they are food insecure, homeless, etc. That's the injustice.
2
I just got lost reading all the comments on how to improve high school ed. How about doing 3 simple things. I. Start school later because teenagers need more sleep. 2. Reduce class size to help teachers give more attention to each student. 3. Pay teachers a professional wage that would attract the best candidates for the job. That would a least be a start in the right direction.
69
@EMM I'm not sure we'd get better teachers with higher pay. We'd get fewer of them leaving the profession when they realize how underpaid they'll be and how difficult it'll be to live on it, perhaps, but I don't think the people who are motivated primarily by money will necessarily make better teachers.
We should pay them more, but only because what we pay them now is a national disgrace, not out of some pragmatic bet that it'll result in better teachers.
3
@Eric I was trying to make the point that many qualified, interested and very intelligent candidates go into other professions because they are more lucrative and highly regarded. If you graduated college with a lot of debt would you want to become a teacher even if you were passionate about a career in education, or would you want to get out of debt and start living an economically stable life in a highly regarded profession or job? You are correct. we under value our teachers and show little respect for the profession.
9
@EMM I wouldn't recommend that anyone go into education, even if they could graduate college debt-free. But I'm not convinced that paying more will get us better teachers. I think we should pay them more because it's the right thing to do, not out of self-interest that might not pan out.
2
This is absolutely true! I wish the author had mentioned some of the really powerful and engaging music classes that are taking place; like rock bands (thanks to the wonderful nonprofit Little Kids Rock) and samba drumming but also just well-taught traditional music classes like choir and orchestra that inspire kids every day.
5
"... we noticed that powerful learning was happening most often at the periphery — in electives, clubs and extracurriculars."
Field trips are a great way to expand teaching beyond the classroom.
In "Mona Lisa Smile", the art history professor (played by Julia Roberts) takes her students to an artist's studio.
Later, while looking at Soutine's "Carcass of Beef", she provocatively asks her students, "Is it any good?"
You have to know that Soutine often painted rotting meat, so her question can be interpreted in more than one way. And THAT is education.
@TPM
Let's aim for moat of them being able to read at a 4th grade level before we go so deep on the things we college grads have come to celebrate.
That will go far to justify the incredible expense of public education. Then, how do we get most parents to buy in to what schools want to do?
TO: "Let's aim for moat of them being able to read at a 4th grade level before we go so deep on the things ..."
4th graders can look at art, and they can make their own art. All that can be combined with reading and writing about art (at the appropriate level, of course).
1
So long as we hold teachers and schools, not students and parents, responsible when students fail, we're going to see kids passed on who haven't mastered what they should have.
3
Years ago, I added a service project to my Critical Thinking course. It was great. One pair of students made a film, others developed a guide to Hum. 115 for nursing students, and others wrote an analysis of a campus problem from a critical thinking perspective. I eventually stopped assigning this project, because the complicated lives of commuity college students made it too hard, if only because they're all driving in from distant locations. Even so, a debate remains a feature of that class--and I've made it part of my composition courses, too. It's amazing how much people suddenly care about the quality of their souces, logical fallacies, control of tone, etc. when involved in a debate. During summer session, we've held readings of plays outside. Students eat this up, or, more accurately, they ham it up--but that enthusiasm is what you want. There has to be some element of lecture to convey the factual basis for the meaningful application of ideas and concepts--and UNC-CH's Molly Worthen has written very persuasively for the Times on the virtues of the well-executed lecture. But while the lecture, especially if buttressed by slides, questions to and from the class, and student presentations, will always have a role to play in education, it's pretty clear that when students actually do something during class, when they're involved in what another writer for The Times, Annie Murphy Paul, calls active learning, it's best for everyone.
6
What do most college and university students say?
Do they say they are bored at the same percentages?
If not, why not.
3
@Naples College students are an entirely different audience. They are not required to be there. It is a self-selected group. It would still be interesting to compare them, however.
Concern that schools are boring; the school day starts too early; the curriculum isn’t about me; there’s not enough technology, or support services. These were not concerns in public education 100 years ago when people were much worse off economically, nor today in Japan, China, South Korea or other success stories. We have much bigger problems rooted in the American family. No matter the student’s socio-economic status, ethnicity, or gender, today’s American teenager is part of an overprivileged generation who have no attention span, full of their own self importance, status-conscious, and lazy with no sense of personal responsibility or community. From infancy, it is families- not public schools- that shape a child’s respect for authority, sense of decency, self control, self-reliance, grit, loyalty, citizenship and even a sense of gratitude that they are receiving a free public educations. The community (not the government) provided extracurricular stimulation.
Do you want to know which Americans are breaking the mold of today’s American teenager? successful immigrant families (Nigerian, Lebanese, South Korean) who bring with them a traditional culture that values the above virtues. Those were also American values just 40 years ago. It still exists but hard to find. The families who possess those values tend to move to school districts with other like-minded families. Until we reassess the role of the family these conversations about public education will go nowhere.
15
The problem with high school, that makes it so boring, is the over abundance of rules the students are besieged with. If you've ever gone a school field trip you may know what I mean. Do this, don't do this, take this, don't take this, wait here, etc. etc. etc.
What makes a ore valuable is the ratio of base rock to precious metals. If there is so much base rock and so little precious metal the rock is not worth hauling to the mill. The high school rules are the base rock and the knowledge is the precious metal. The great thing about college is the value of the ore is so much higher.
6
The rules at all levels are such a bummer. I cringed at the routine drummed into elementary students when my son was in school. He was so scared to make a misstep that the joy went right out of him by the end of kindergarten. If the kids were too rowdy in the halls, they would be made to go back to the gym to practice walking in straight, orderly lines. When I met my son for a college counseling meeting at his high school, I also witnessed this compliance mentality. He seemed like a completely different person to the kid I know at home. Maybe it is time to look at how we suppress the physical as much as the mental. Asking permission to move or even go to the bathroom and sitting quietly in too tiny desk chairs all day in windowless buildings doesn’t seem like the best way to get kids engaged.
As a former (long, long ago) instructor of college English and one time parent of h.s. students (long ago too), I'd like to make a point I don't see here. Students come in at least two varieties: self-starters and those who need stimulation and encouragement. For various self-serving reasons, schools often give the best teachers to the self-starters while those who need stimulation are left with second (or third or fourth) best. Like Charmaine, I parented one of each type of child. For too many years, I protested to counselors that my second child would do better with more challenge before I discovered by accident that I could "waiver" her into "enriched" classes. When her senior English teacher (enr) covering BRAVE NEW WORLD asked for examples of alphas and betas, she was shocked speechless when my daughter volunteered, "academic tracking." But she was right.
7
Bad teachers make school boring. There are very few good teachers. By definition, most teachers are average. Therefore, school is mildly boring for most students. Adding extracurricular activities or giving teachers more freedom isn't going to change the underlying dynamic.
In fact, you might make things worse by asking below average teachers to achieve expectations they can't reasonably meet. They have to take time out of their already substandard performance to now supervise extracurricular activities with dubious relevance to the subject material they are already teaching below average.
Good teachers make school fun and exciting. In my experience, some people have the gift and others don't. You can put a good teacher in a concrete box with little more than a stick and a text box. He or she will find a way to make the material come alive. You give a bad teacher all the resources in the world and the material will still land with a resounding thud.
Personally, I find bad teachers are actually counter productive. Better to tune them out than listen to them confuse the subject for you. I would always bring a book to class for exactly this reason. You can sort out the lesson later from the homework. Even if you're "present" in class, doesn't mean you actually need to be there mentally.
Books were my anti-school. They were often much more effective than the teachers.
5
@Andy
My biggest regret was seeing not-so-old teachers simply giving up on individual children - even some from their supposed race and class.
1
What's need is to turn boring into stimulating, not entertaining.
Sadly, schools will likely remain boring as it's too much one-size-fits-all and run by government administration.
1
@David That's been the argument to justify funding charters, offering private school scholarships, and other privatization schemes. And the fact is, the public schools are still generally better.
1
The State of South Carolina recently got a wake up call when the Charleston newspaper did a thorough expose’ on how the schools were failing.
Everyone has known this for decades, of course, but it was an election year,& a few politicians were voted out of office (not many, mind you)
Our crack Republican dominated legislature went into high gear, and without consulting anyone in education, parents, social workers, had their young minions whip out a 140 page law that was unread by the politicos, except for the top line components.
Small schools were to be merged with others to reduce administrative costs.
Failing schools, defined by test scores, were to be put on probation and further failure would result in being taken over by the State, whoever that turned out to be.
Teachers, notably underpaid, were to be given raises of a few percent after years of no raises. Bad teachers would be fired,however bad teachers were defined.
It was a classic example of southern evangelical beliefs that punishment is the solution to everything.
Politicians are being heaped with praise by these “spare the rod spoil the child” voters who reelect theses good ole boys..and they’re mostly boys...for their swift actions.
You can bet the reports a year from now will show how much the schools have improved by the brave actions of these sages, whose primary concern other than keeping everyone armed with assault rifles, is the welfare of the people....well, only certain people...not “those people”
3
I hope Bill and Melinda read this article.
3
It runs deeper than this. We have an anti-intellectual society where learning is not valued. Look at the current debate on climate change. And, it isn't the teachers!!!! We have a public school system that is only concerned about test scores. Let teachers teach!!
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@Jacqueline Reichman
Teachers can teach well, if they choose. If they focus on the test, they are not doing their job. I have taught since 1986. I know the difference.
3
@TD Teachers, especially in low-income schools, are increasingly often forced to choose between doing their jobs and keeping them.
11
It is the rare teacher who stimulates 180 days a year. Leave it If to a Harvard professor to set an impossible goal for teachers. Maybe professors are at the top of their game every day.
I taught US history. I had some lessons that were crowd pleasers. I had a biweekly history (and popular culture) Jeopardy game. But there just wasn’t time enough to make the Constitution entertaining. And I wanted my kids to know the Fifth Amendment so they wouldn’t blurt out everything when arrested. I figured that, considering the student population, this was pretty important.
23
One size does not fit all, in education or in life. Our norms-based systems still are not to designed to accommodate and maximize the potential of individuals as if they are unique. And yet, we are.
I like the idea of "...triggering the instinct to contribute." It might be fostered by creating significant, meaningful peer mentoring opportunities for students. Throughout school, I was effortlessly pulling "A's", and lacking challenge, while my (only, younger) brother struggled to keep up with his grade level, and was continually under threat of being "held back". No one ever suggested or fostered the notion of asking his "brainy" older sister to help him, with the possible exception of my mother, "Why don't you help your little brother?" I didn't know how, and he probably would have resisted, but I wish I'd have tried.
He became competitive in sports, while I became a rebel. Years later, when I discovered him studiously looking up words in a huge dictionary, in order to understand a nutritional tome he valued, it broke my heart. I suddenly realized that he wasn't unwilling to learn - when motivated by an interest. I fervently wish I'd been mentored to help him with reading when we were both in school. I think it could have benefited both of us.
3
The single most important factor that encourages a kid to be interested in X: that the kids around them are interested in X.
Also important: that the other kids be smart, maybe slightly smarter, though not so much smarter that the kid gets left in the dust.
My opinion/suggestion. Not scientific.
2
@Mark
This is totally true. I did not get into the "advanced math class" and was surrounded by people who had no interest in the subject. While I was also bored by it, I am certain my middling math grades and weak grasp of the subject matter would have been seriously improved had I simply taken the harder class and been surrounded by bright and curious students.
3
I am a teacher in a Minneapolis alternative high school. My school is in a culturally rich and economically beleaguered community. What my students need is to graduate into opportunities, whether through higher education, career training, or things in between. We dedicate a great deal of time at our school bringing the community in, and sending our students out to explore the many ways they can choose to build wealth and health, both for themselves and their families, and for their neighborhoods. I find it absurd and elitist that conversations about what needs to happen in schools proceed uncoupled from consideration of yawning income inequality and systematic historical inequities and how school districts ought to be addressing these. Some days my students are bored; some days they are not. But I am always able to tell them how what we're doing is connected to their dreams of and goals for the lives they desire and deserve. I have been teaching for 30 years. There is never enough time. When schools are smaller, we can build the crucial relationships. A rich curriculum is a curriculum that engages students in iniquiry about their place in the world, and their path towards future success, and yes, generational wealth. If we are serious about eliminating all of the "gaps," we should be honest about the barriers students face, and get busy helping them tear the barriers down. That, really, is high school to me, after all.
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@Cynthia Gomez
Why do we care about what some youngster thinks is relevant as if they have had some great life experience in their brief time on earth? A big reason that students do not learn is that they expect to be entertained. Ask students about learning civics and the answer will usually be that such is irrelevant and boring---back to their I-phones they will go. Hence the success of Fox News and the like. I can say this after retiring from teaching, mostly history and civics, for 34 years.
22
@Michael you may be younger than me but you sound like an old grump. "Youngsters"? I am talking about using the high school years to help students graduate into a real future. It's not the iphone generation that watches Fox News: it's ours! Why be teachers if we're going to be bitter about "these kids nowadays"? My students are bright and hilarious, and we laugh every day. We 'learn civics' by being engaged in the concerns of our community. We all want to be entertained and have fun. Relevance is not the same thing as entertainment. My students live lives in which death is common, in which the many by-products of poverty and racism are constant stressors. They are so resilient and they deserve everything.
4
The greatest summation of human knowledge is the Periodic Table of the Elements. If students truly had an understanding of that blueprint of our universe they would have all they need to graduate. That and a splash of Melville.
2
"If students truly had an understanding of that blueprint of our universe [the Periodic Table of the Elements] they would have all they need to graduate."
Could you suggest a way to teach students about the Periodic Table of the Elements without being boring?
"That and a splash of Melville."
I suspect that you may be joking, since Melville is notoriously prolix, so what would you recommend as "a splash of Melville"?
2
@Rachel Ordinary ("baryonic") matter, which is what the periodic table is solely concerned with, makes up only about 5% of the total mass-energy of the universe. Exactly what constitutes the remaining 95% is currently unknown. So to say the periodic table is the blueprint of the universe is quite an exaggeration.
2
William: "So to say the periodic table is the blueprint of the universe is quite an exaggeration."
Instead of trying to prove how much you "know", why don't you suggest a way to teach subatomic physics without being boring? Please confine your answer to what would be suitable for middle- or high school students.
One job of schools is to prepare students for the boredom, regimentation, and authority structures of most jobs. School teaches them to figure out the real (as opposed to the official) definition of winning and the ways to satisfy this real definition with the minimum effort and the maximum preservation of personal values. Students who are good at figuring this out will be prepared for success in more creative fields. Students who just try to survive rather than mastering and manipulating the school environment will be prepared for the mundane jobs that await them.
5
Science, Math, History, English and many other core requirements are not boring, at least not to someone who wants to be educated. Until schools do an excellent job at the basics, spending money on these so called entertaining things does not exist.
4
While I agree with the vision of teaching and learning advocated for in this piece, I find the framing of it reductive and unhelpful. Schools and classrooms are complex systems that cannot be understood as either “boring” or “not boring.” Moreover, the effectiveness of a teacher cannot be assessed by measuring the interest level of students alone. Yes, a room of young people passionately pursuing answers to problems is a marvelous and uplifting place to be, but that does not make it a better place than a room of students struggling with geometry or grammar. Students need to experience boredom, excitement, discipline, acceptance, and an array of other emotions to fully mature and develop. A quality education manifests when students actively apply their curiosity, knowledge, and skills for a real-world audience. But the payoffs may not be immediate. For instance, didn't the student on the debate team practice rigorous, systemic thinking and perseverance when in the "boring" Algebra class? Didn't they learn deferred gratification and mastery of fact when studying for their World History exams?
We must accept that schools are working toward the long-term development of students. Thus, they cannot be reduced to simplistic measures, whether they are test scores or “boredom.”
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@Brian Sorry, but you sound like the naysayer principal who's stuck in that 19th-century teaching method rut. I taught public school for three years in the 70s before going into the corporate world where I spent most of my career developing and teaching new procedures and programs. I used to think that I had been a great teacher in the school system. Other than creating a literature course where each student chose their own books to read, I, too, was a prisoner of a boring system. I read this piece and became excited by the ideas presented. I imagined myself (now retired) in classrooms of excited students. Unfortunately, politics rarely finances good educational systems.
5
@David Currier
You speak so definitely, but you were only a teacher for a brief period of time and then went into the corporate world. Well I am sorry, you can force kids with a variety of backgrounds and socio-economic statuses, to go to school to learn things they may or may not care to learn. Education is a process and it is not always fun to learn. In fact, I would posit that the enjoyment and/or willingness to learn depends more on the community and family life of the student than the teacher and what they do for 40 or 50 minutes. I would also posit that the idea that the "old way" is the wrong way is simplistic and killing education today. Teaching is an art where a positive learning experience is the goal. There is no one way of doing this, and those who think there is are either fooling themselves or have little to no idea what teaching is really about. I love the guitar. I studied it, and had a tough teacher. I never really enjoyed the lessons because I was worked hard--but I learned a lot. By your logic, my guitar teacher was a bad teacher because he didn't make my lessons "fun".
3
Here in Virginia, we have the 4th lowest pay scale nationwide. A starting teacher with a bachelor's degree and student loans makes $23K in a rural district. That's what a sheriff's deputy with no degree and a few months of fully paid police academy makes.
They pile on the testing and the unpaid prep time. They prohibit unions by law. They force every teacher to use exactly the same lesson plan and work sheets, even when they don't suit student needs. They cannot "find" good teachers, but the reality is that quality teachers will not enter the sector because they don't pay them and they have little to no job security.
School is "boring."
Teaching is stultifying. No wonder school is boring. Teachers are treated like can openers. Interchangeable objects you can buy at the Dollar Tree and throw away when you're done with them.
I don't teach, but I've tutored in the high schools, filling in gaps for affluent students where the schools have abjectly failed. Schools are failing because they are designed from the ground up TO FAIL. Schools are throwing money at exactly the wrong things: technology, testing, worksheets, rote standardization.
Schools are ignoring what works best: great teaching, innovation, attracting talented people who do great work, teachers who see what individual kinds need and provide it every day because they care... and aren't overworked and underpaid.
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@Dejah Or great students who are very motivated to learn and behave properly since they have been properly raised by their parents. I agree that teachers are not paid well, that is somewhat because their is a surplus of them.
@vulcanalex. “There is” not “their is” Actually, in many states, there is a teacher shortage. Not many college students want a low paying job with no respect.
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@Kb Also, it's important to mention that the Republican response to the growing teachers shortage has universally been to lower standards and hire unqualified people as "teachers" rather than to raise pay.
4
"... all students [in the course] were initiated into what it meant to _do_ science."
That's great, but students also need to learn what is already known through science.
"... this allowed them to understand that science is a messy and uncertain business — much less knowable than it seems when reciting Newton’s laws."
Newton’s laws were discovered over millennia, and they are both abstract and counter-intuitive. In particular, the presence of friction makes it very difficult to discover Newton's First Law. Here is a sequence of experiments that "disproves" Newton's First Law:
Exp. 1: Push a ball on a tabletop.
Exp. 2: Push a dinner plate on a tabletop.
Exp. 3: Repeat the above with the tabletop tilted.
My guess is that almost no one could discover Newton's First Law that way. However, that would show that experiments often involve *comparing* related phenomena.
The history of science shows how Newton's laws were discovered, so I would advocate reading extracts from the original works of scientists with the help of a teacher.
Intellectual history can be very exciting when it is presented as a range of puzzles or problems that people struggled to solve.
5
Having taught elementary school and at a university for a total of 40 years, I am certain that no school should be boring. In fact, when we hear children ,at any age, recite the traditional mantra, "I hate school!" We should recognize it for what it is, telling us: Our schools are failing to interest the students. Disinterested children are very very fifficult to educate. In addition, to a great extent we are still convinced that acquiring information equals education, when in fact it is the use or application of the information that identifies an educated person. Rather than identify all of the areas that could be improved, I would first suggest we first discontinue saying that additional funding is not the answer, an idea from the mid 80's pushed by of all people, the then Secy. of Ed. William Bennett. Then answer the question: What governmental agency or corporation, when faced with a significant problem , does not allocate addition funding. Conclusion:Education is woefully underfunded.
3
@sjpbpp As long as we pretend that education is stuffing facts in all brains using antiquated techniques over engaging problem solving and critical thinking, no progress will be made.
You can be fully educated without ever going to a school. Making school mandatory by law (coercive government-run education camps to those who are not inside the bubble) suggest a fear of losing customers to alternative lives and ways of learning.
Schooling is all about the credential, not about education itself.
@David
Did you read my comment?
You're preaching to the choir.
"In addition, to a great extent we are still convinced that acquiring information equals education, when in fact it is the use or application of the information that identifies an educated person."
I don't know about "coercive government" but you seem to assume that the customers you describe are capable of determining what an effective learning environment. When in fact these are the very same people who have, for over 100 years, given their tacit approval to our terrible, current system. I would encourage you to look into the social contract as was described byHobbs,Locke and Rousseau.
1
@sjpbpp While your opinion is typical, it is really the students who are not properly motivated to learn, school is not to be "interesting" to everyone, after all work is not.
Far more connection to learning in the real world is needed - whether that real world is a research lab helping to grow skin for burn victims, or a cooking/science class to develop new foods for people with specific allergies.
I sat next to a junior in high school at a restaurant last week who, after bragging about taking an AP government class, said very seriously, that she planned to have a job "consulting" some day, not in a particular field of interest, just consulting. And she hopes to get into a top college.
2
@common sense advocate Indeed, nothing like a new MBA graduate telling a long-time businessman how better to run a business, while themselves having never done so or even experienced being an executive in such a company, but they can be paid consultants!
4
As a HS student I honestly agree and empathize with these points. In some core classes the subject material is boring and the classes are lifeless. Teachers are following a script. It's boring uninspiring work that has no purpose and the class culture is weak. No one participates or discusses anything. To no fault of the teacher. They teach to kids that are uninspired and sometimes have issues (as this is a lower class school that has about 75% of the student population on free and reduced lunch). Although some Honors/AP classes that I have attended have been more fleshed out and provide a good learning experience. They were mostly English/Social Studies classes that had some leeway for creativity and discussion. Those classes had a good student culture and good engagement with the teacher. We had intellectual conversations and left the classroom with something to think about when we got home. It made us eager to come back to class hoping we could learn more and that the class period was a bit longer. Although a lot of times the AP curriculum would get in the way and interrupt discussion with hard deadlines and lots of work. I'm curious on how those same attributes can be transferred onto other subject materials such as Math and Science, subjects which require lots of mentoring and plain learning. I'm also curious on how these "new" teaching methods can help underprivileged schools because, personally, this traditional school setting has left me uninspired and hopeless.
2
"They were mostly English/Social Studies classes that had some leeway for creativity and discussion."
Could you be more specific about what you found "creative" in those classes? Give actual examples.
1
"I'm curious on how those same attributes can be transferred onto other subject materials such as Math and Science, subjects which require lots of mentoring and plain learning."
Have you done any experiments in the math or science classes? If so, what were they?
BTW, math experiments are possible -- e.g. comparing the sizes of things, such as rectangles or drinking glasses.
Even sophisticated mathematicians have found the concept of "size" to be difficult to define rigorously.
For example, Georg Cantor (1845-1918) invented set theory, in part, so that he could compare the "size" of different infinite sets. Cantor discovered that infinite sets can have *different* sizes.
2
@TPM
In AP Language and Composition we were assigned book reports where we were allowed to present the report in our own creative way. (Making the book report look like the book, putting the report on a poster and etc.) We had some creative writing assignments.
Also in my AP Gov class we were able to setup our own campaign slogan and design political posters for a mock presidential campaign.
1
Students who are bored in their classrooms generally lack curiosity and tend to be intellectually lazy; they prefer to do the minimum work possible and just want to have fun with their friends. High schools are not intended to be amusement parks for bored adolescents. It is not the role of the school to cater to student's personal interests (if any) but instead, to develop new areas of interest and to open doors of opportunity they did not know existed. It is the job of teachers to provide a wide variety of interesting and meaningful academic classroom experiences that draw students into their academic disciplines. As I tell my students, if you think this school is boring, try working on the loading dock for 30 years.
There is also a practical side to the job of transporting, caring, for, and educating hundreds of teenagers on a near daily basis that necessitates routine and tedium. Non educators who clamor for high schools that provide dynamic and exciting experiences driven by student interests simply don't realize how the grind of the 180 day school year makes doing so nearly impossible.
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@rab Not like the 360 day work year where your employer is sure to be more concerned about entertaining you than having you provide them work benefits.
4
The background of the authors explains why they say nothing at all about mathematics classes. I began teaching in 1967, when we had already changed the math curriculum in response to Sputnik. Though there were several successful and several unsuccessful approaches to this, they all dictated that math be a DISCOVERY experience. I always taught that way. I always asked my kids to tell me what they thought, and they did. It surprises me that the authors did not see that good mathematics instruction has always done what they advocate.
Oh, one more thing: In 1985, I was awarded a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching from President Reagan.
17
"... they say nothing at all about mathematics classes."
Nor do they mention extracurricular activities such as science fairs or mathematics competitions.
In particular, the Mathematical Association of America sponsors annual math competitions.
4
This piece follows the usual formula—required classes are boring, extracurriculars are fun. I taught for 40 years in a good private high school, and Disagree with a number of the piece’s cliched pronouncements—teachers bore their students by teaching to the test. Tests don’t have to be boring. I taught AP English and found the tests very good at stimulating specific observations, subtle patterns, and often in the best minds, of creative artistic merit and their own good writing. Some teachers themselves lack the thrill of seeing subtle meaning in a literary work and to their students we owe an apology. And time must be given to the teaching of “boring” subjects like grammar. Sometimes rigorous solitary study is called for. We cannot be on stage and performing all of our lives. Enough with simplistic solutions!
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@Richard "Rigorous" study is probably best left for advanced schooling. Most of the boring is because the material is taught as if we don't have lookup and computation resources at our fingertips.
It would be like teaching construction people how to build ramps for slaves to push heavy things up rather than teaching them to use a crane.
4
@Richard If the class is appropriate and the test as well you don't have to teach the test, teach the material on the test. Teaching the test is lazy and basically cheating.
2
@David. I would rather students understand grammar as a subject rather than just depend on Microsoft grammar check. When we speak, for instance, we don’t have grammar check—when we hear someone say, “We have ate already,” we consciously or unconsciously, fairly or unfairly, make assumptions about that person’s education, upbringing, or intelligence.
5
Everyone is working under the assumption that boredom is a bad thing. Sometimes, in order to practice a skill and become really great at it, you will become bored in the process. Lack of engagement, I think, is the real problem.
52
Any teacher would tell you the same. Extra curricular
activities are engaging because of student choice and the lack of a prescribed curriculum. Theses are not areas covered by standardized testing. Elective teachers and club advisors are not concerned about test scores and merit pay. No English teacher uses formulaic paragraph templates because she thinks it’s the route to authentic, engaging writing. It increases test scores. Unfortunately, students in low income schools get a narrow curriculum that is all about test scores. Schools were students already score higher on standardized tests get more freedom to stray away from scripted programs.
7
“What we need to do is to trigger their instinct to contribute.”---
No Prof. Mehta and Ms. Fine. What we need to do is trigger their instinct to learn. Or even better to light in them the spark of learning that might accompany then everywhere, not only in schools or academia.
I should add that it is not only the system which is at fault. The students bear a good deal of blame, and their pressures are no excuse. Real life is a lot more pressured.
How many students show or make good on an intellectual curiosity that catalyzes their desire and usually their ability to learn? This is not impossible and it was once not that unusual.
To make classes "interesting" (and God forbid "relevant", a word which really has no place in any education system) the student cannot be an empty sieve or a "customer" expecting to be served. No pain, no gain, sweat and hard work are not only necessary for excellence in sports. They are more important in academic and intellectual endeavors. And it is a partnership.
This may be old-fashioned , but then so am I.
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@Joshua Schwartz
This sounds a lot like "the beatings will continue until morale improves" - so far, not proven to be a really successful strategy, either in the workplace or in education.
2
@Quite Contrary No, it sounds like making education a process that also makes demands of the students, and not coddling them and actually I think it worked just fine.
6
@Quite Contrary If you equate learning to "beatings," you're probably not somebody whose education advice we should be taking.
Morale isn't likely to improve no matter what we do. We've got a society that looks down on learning, celebrates ignorance, doesn't value teachers, and thinks everything should be entertaining. We've tried dumbing schools down to try to compete with video games, and that's been unsuccessful. Probably putting the responsibility for doing the work and learning back onto the students would work better.
5
The authors fail to recognize that the participants in extracurricular activities, which they so highly praise, are self-selected because of an affinity towards the activity, be it theater, debate, athletics, etc. Of course, student will try to excel under such circumstances. If one would randomly assign such activity to students without their consent, the results would likely be different and similar to the 'boredom' of an average core subject. I put the boredom in apostrophes because that emotional state depends largely on the degree of disinterest of the student in some topics or occasionally on the ineptitude of the teacher. A curious and motivated student will overcome such obstacles. Unfortunately most students do not possess these traits and they are not easily learned, but could develop at later stages of life. A great teacher can inspire and motivate a student to learn and appreciate a particular topic, but that does not necessarily translate to other areas, unless the student is by nature broadly inquisitive. By the time a student is in high school he/she should be aware of the need to master well the core topics, regardless of a lack of enthusiasm in a particular subset. For many students the extracurricular activities outweigh the need of doing well in the core curricula. Unfortunately many are also doing it to embellish their portfolio at the expense of academic achievements, circumstances a good teacher or enlightened instruction can not compensate for.
28
Discussions such as the one in this article were around for all of the 35 years I spent as a public school teacher. Clearly, we are still seeking the grail of an educational process that is meaningful to the student and valuable to society. What I hope every teacher takes from this particular article is the final sentence. Making the desire to contribute a focus of teaching will go far to improving the outcome for everyone.
5
You have to realize that core classes are not always appropriate; often a large portion of students are socially promoted and cannot read or write or comprehend at the level needed for the course, and that means the course is weakened so greatly that it benefits no one. Students are commonly taking online courses or homeschooling or reading so they can get the actual grade level course, particularly in mathematics. Go back to grouping by instructional need and you will see engagement rise.
12
How about the kids that might be more interested in learning how to use power tools than Shakespeare? Plenty of HSs now offer college credit courses, which is exciting for those looking to join the professions that require 4-10 years of college, but why not start offering classes for kids that want to begin earning a tradesmen salary after HS graduation?
Both my brothers learned carpentry skills from my brother-in-law, which helped them make decent money until they decided to go back to school and get masters degrees in engineering. One of these brothers also studied car repair in HS and had his own business as a mobile mechanic for a few years before settling down in his engineering profession.
Right now, kids who may become plumbers or electricians waste a lot of time in HS and then have to apprentice before they can make a living in the trades.
Our schools need to stop pretending that everyone is going to end up in a career that requires a liberal arts college education. The earlier tradesmen start making a living the more likely they will have a shot at accumulating middle class level wealth.
37
@alan haigh
Excellent point, as a student we agitated for shop class- and home economy! The desire to learn how to use tools, drive, troubleshoot, and sew. All things I had to pay for as an adult.
7
@alan haigh Woodshop, Auto shop and Cooking classes are great. And we will need restaurant workers (or even just parents who can cook for their family), car mechanics and Carpenters/contractors for years to come. That work is not going away.
2
@alan haigh, My dad went to a high school in Cicero, Illinois back in the 1930s. He took "shop" classes in addition to the required math
and civics, and I was amazed at the actual usable and beautiful tools he made in his high school classes. Measuring devices that he actually used in his career making the steel molds for plastic airplanes kits among many other things. In my high school in the 1960s the only shop class was for boys only, and it was car mechanics. Instead of academics, I could have studied cake baking, but I already knew that from 4-H, so thank goodness there was a great ceramics course, and thank goodness for the school literary magazine and the writers' club.
1
Sure, fun is fun. But some learning requires hard work, which sometimes is fun and sometimes not. Trump like to have fun with the office of presidency, other presidents buckled down and read reports, discussed serious issues, thought about likely consequences. It was hard, sometimes required reading boring reports. And often a lot of the work had to be done by oneself -- no group discussion until each person had something to discuss. What do we want to teach our children -- they should only learn when it is fun?
This is not to say that some administrators and politicians force teachers to do boring stuff with their students, and some teachers produce boring classes and boring assignments all on their own. But these are different issues.
This article is too simplistic an analysis -- someone didn't do their homework.
39
@JustThinkin They also didn't observe music classes. Scales aren't fun, but we still had to do them. Playing the B flat or E flat scale helped us play the music that was much more fun.
16
@Letitia Jeavons
Yep!
1
One point not made explicitly enough in this piece is that the extracurriculars described are choices; kids aren't in a drama production or working on the school newspaper or on a debate team because they have to be. They want to be there.
23
As teacher of twenty years, there is a very simple reason why extra curricular courses are far more engaging. They have been far less scrutinized by administrators because they are not subjects covered on Standardized tests. As a result, teachers in these courses are given more freedom to be creative, afforded opportunities to build an engaging class culture, and able to connect students to a larger purpose through performance or publication.
The core subject teachers, sadly, are evaluated by administrators, many with little teaching experience, staring at rubrics of “best practices” and haranguing those that don’t follow the boring script. Several years ago, as a core class teacher in English subject to the soul-sucking data-driven cult of numeric accountability, I moved into video arts where I have far more autonomy and the program has thrived.
I’ve noticed those extra-curricular courses tend attract the more iconoclastic, affective-oriented teachers who dread the endless meetings and scrutiny about alignment and standards. The more interesting idiosyncratic teachers that students gravitate towards have been systematically driven out or retired. The company men and woman with predictable, sleep-inducing styles are often lauded by administration but rarely remembered by their students. The ones that can juggle the dictates of hoops and still engage exist but do so in spite of the system, not as a result of it.
Boring boring boring indeed.
194
Please, readers, pay careful attention to this comment. It tells you pretty much all you need to know about what it's like to be a teacher today. I used to have the greatest job in the world, but now, I'm counting the days until retirement. I feel especially bad for the young teachers in my school who don't know what it's like to teach without feeling constantly on the defensive. Often, I find myself planning lessons with the goal of checking off all the right boxes on the evaluation rubric, instead of thinking about the needs and interests of my students. Accountability measures always sound great, but they seem to stifle the best teachers as least as much as they force the weakest ones to improve.
24
@Marty Given the disconnect between the checkboxes on the evaluations and what good teaching actually looks like, I'm not convinced they force anybody to improve. Jumping through arbitrary hoops won't make you better at much of anything.
They sure do stifle good teachers, though.
8
@Mark
If you chose to teach to the test or to teach for a rubric score knowing it was not in the best interest of students, that is on you. Nothing but lack of imagination keeps a teacher from making any course interesting. Blame standardized tests, rubrics, and administrators all you want, but in the end, you are the one in front of students every day.
2
Thank you, thank you SOOO much for articulating so succinctly what I’ve been thinking and becoming more vocal about the last few years. Not only does our current K-12ing create bored students...it is also perpetuates constant inequity (Read the wonderful book by Zaretta Hammond “Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain” which brilliantly lays a case for this.)
20
You can make a living with a STEM education. Very few people make a living with the arts.
The major difference between the American education system and the Foreign education system is that American students spend about three hours a week studying at home, while Foreign students spend about three hours a night studying. This column is oblivious to that.
It is amazing to see foreigners do education correctly, while Americans ignore it and try to reinvent the wheel. Why don't you write about how Singapore educates students at school and at home?
6
@Keith Dow
So it's down to "STEM" vs. "the arts" huh?
And "the" Foreign education system? You mean the whole world is alike except the U.S.?
Should we also have a criminal justice system like Singapore?
2
@Keith Dow
Not true, I easily spent 3 to 4 hours a night studying in high school.
2
Newsflash! Students learn best when they are creatively engaged with their work! They are human beings, not automatons! Yet our system is designed to treat them as empty vessels to be filled with a random assortment of facts! It actually doesn't work very well! Who knew?
5
Twenty years ago we sacrificed to move to one of the highest ranked school systems in our state. Only to find that although our kids are very bright, even gifted in some areas, since both had no interest in becoming a doctor, lawyer, or corporate professional - the preferred tracks served by the school - they were underserved.
One student announced during an 8th grade group project that everyone had to do a great job, because they had to get into Yale. Another became so obsessed with getting into Stanford, they disengaged from anyone they felt wouldn’t be of use in that endeavor.
Tiger parents abounded, and were insufferable, always looking to check the next box. The PTO and appointed helpers were relentless in fund raising, for programs that they believed would look good on their kids resumes.
Sports teams were supported, but with big checks written by the parents. As were other elective courses, most of which seemed designed to look good on a transcript.
The one silver lining was the advisors had a well directed program to help students navigate the college admissions process. Although even that had moments. The gap year seminar where an advisor suggested with a straight face that it would impress colleges if we paid $50k for our kid to crew on a sailboat voyage around the world, or live in a chaperoned seaside mansion in Ireland to experience Irish culture.
We live in a world gone wrong.
12
Of course this is true. However, why haven’t you examined programs like the WISE programs that originated in Woodlands HS in Greenburgh NY that exists in one form or another in many High Schools or Senior Options in Scarsdale High School?
In these programs students, with the help of a staff mentor and and outside advisor, work towards the completion of an Individualized project that matches their passions, skills, and perhaps occupational inquiry.
These programs have allowed thousands of students over the last 45 years to learn how to learn, persevere, and understand how learning works in real world situations.
6
Unless and until we come to a consensus about the actual purpose of a high school education (Is it to develop genuine curiosity, critical thinking skills and a lifelong love of learning, is it to construct a resume for future endeavors, or is it a barometer for measuring how well everyone involved is complying to a laundry list of policies and requirements?), students and teachers will continue to toil in intellectually impoverished classrooms. Further, none of the engaging activities cited in the article has a high stakes standardized test attached to it, which should tell us everything we need to know about their value. And finally, if we truly want to improve educational quality, we need to stop prioritizing the opinions of business people and politicians who have no clue what it’s like to stand in front of a classroom full of teenagers (starting with the Secretary of Education).
7
@JCC
AMEN!
I teach in higher Ed. As much as we may want to bring more creativity and fun to every classroom, no one can think creatively about complex subjects (chemistry, history, biology) without a fundamental knowledge of the facts of that field. Exploring Shakespeare in theatre class is very different than trying to understand chemistry. How we teach the facts of a field can certainly vary but much needs to be memorized and memorizing just isn’t fun if one isn’t genuinely interested in the field. Empowering teachers to do some more exploring to help students find their way to their own answers is a great idea - but it will fail unless the teachers themselves are also genuinely interested (and expert) in that field. General Ed. degrees do not identify those individuals and a system that refuses to reward excellence over seniority will not retain them.
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@Craig Williams
It would also be nice if the average entering College student had learned, somewhere along the way, to write a coherent simple sentence and to read beyond a third grade level.
14
@Craig Williams As a homeschooler (and former university lecturer) I often got comments about how you jus can't make learning fun all the time.
This misunderstands the point. The point is student engagement, the feeling that something of worth is at stake and worth knowing.
High Tech High in my city is one school that has managed to develop programs that connect science -- chemistry, biology, physics -- not only to local environmental and social justice programs but also to the arts.
One private alternative school I looked at briefly for my daughter in high school had a half-academic day, and then personally tailored learning expeditions off campus for the students. The head teacher's suggestions for my daughter, had she chosen to attend, were to join a city group for young playwrights, to attend a bookstore's author talks and signings, and to usher at local theaters (she ended up doing both of the last two despite not going to the school).
This is something that is more and more fraught, legally, in this day and age, which is unfortunate, because kids thrive when they are given, and develop, responsibility and a sense that what they are doing is important rather than endless preparation for some unseen future in which everything will supposedly have been important or necessary.
If kids feel that they have choice and engagement in at least some of their lives, they are more willing to work on the "boring" stuff (which some kids actually really enjoy).
7
@Craig Williams
I promise I can bring the same level of erudition to a Shakespeare class as one frequently finds in chemistry. There is little subjectivity in literature when fully comprehended and properly taught.
There is a reason university arts do not get as many takers as high school. Suddenly, the content is objective and challenging. Unfortunately secondary education is crammed with 'teachers' that hold degrees in teaching, not the subject.
The only subject I have been forced to study that had no objective research or analysis was 'education.'
10
Such an important article. Its ideal audience would be politicians and others whose last experience in education was as a student but who believe they have "solutions."
The effects of testing aren't given enough attention. Testing is the business world's notion that a bottom line can be applied to education. Testing prohibits freedom of thought. But politicians and educators are obsessed with data. Teachers are guided toward practices that ask students to seek "the" answer, narrowing thought. Instead, teachers should be encouraged to broaden thought, to open students to new ideas and send students away with questions rather than funneled answers. Content areas would shine and excite curiosity. Notice that the extracurriculars mentioned here are not subject to testing and data.
Easy data is that which asks for one correct answer. Data gets really difficult to harvest if it's open-ended and involves critical thinking. And that's where school is exciting.
And of course this atrophy of critical thought seriously harms democracy (a 300-page document turns into 4 pages which turn into a headline).
Side note: The IB Programmes provide great examples of quality assessments that breed thought and application of skills. And IB has robust infrastructure to assess complex student work.
7
Kids volunteer to be in extra-curriculars because they’re fun, participatory, and free from grades, the opposite of class. I taught high school biology at an urban minority school where some kids bubbled in tests at random, and later at a 98th percentile suburban school where no matter what I taught, the kids would ace the tests. That freed me to develop my own project-based curriculum. Kids launched paper airplanes, measured the distance, and modified them to learn the scientific method. In groups they made a slide show, designed and built a model of a science problem of their choice, and presented them to the class. They chose science fair and research paper topics. Kids who think critically and actively participate will become citizens who won’t passively follow leaders or the crowd.
11
I have spent over 40 years as a teacher, as an administrator, and author of several books on instructional leadership (https://www.amazon.com/associate-professor.-Alan-C.-Jones/e/B00DWKZ2KI?ref_=pe_1724030_132998060) attempting to explain to parents, school boards, and future administrators, what the authors capture in this brief analysis of what is really wrong with public/private school education in America. Instead of listening to John Dewey at the turn of the century our school systems were captured by "administrative progressives" who were the forerunners of our data chasing new ----race to the top--- CEO contemporary school administrators--more rigor, more advanced classes, valued added teaching evaluations...on and on---and what a century long reform movement keeps missing is what by middle school grandson says to me every visit: "Grandpa, why can't they just make school interesting." And, instead, of looking at the latest "no excuses" solution, the answer, as the article points out is right in front of us---all extracurricular programs consists of the core components of engaging learning environments. Thank you Mr. Mehta and Ms. Fine for articulating what has been most obvious to me, but, continues to be missed by the entire educational establishment.
3
@Amanda Jones
I basically agree except they very much lost me when they claimed athletics instilled either a love for learning or a set of intellectual skills.
4
@Neal
There is movement in motion, based on observed fact from the days of Aristotle where walking could very well be in the school curriculum.
Exercise promotes mental activity and the production of neurotransmitters that aide memory and create positive emotions.
1
I was pleased that the author included sports, as a love of learning can certainly be cultivated during a commitment to years of athletics. Intellect is also needed to understand the sport and to maximize performance in both individual and group contexts. Time management, analysis, and self-reflection, critical to development in academics, are all learned through sports. I used to be as cynical as you seem to be about student athletics, but watching my son over six years of participation in three sports each year changed my mind. I began to privilege these activities as they provided a stability very much needed in the life of a teen and had many other benefits related to and supportive of academics.
I'm taken by how similar this is to my experience of half a century ago. Plus ca change . . .
Then as now, most of what we studied consisted of exercises that failed to challenge the mind. Topics that, as an adult, I find fascinating were a dull, grey gruel. Too often, we were forced to study topics that were of no use then or now -- I have spent perhaps two weeks in French-speaking countries in my entire life -- and prevented from diving deeply or sometimes even studying areas that intrigued us. Only occasionally, as for example in geometry classes when we had the opportunity to construct our own proofs, were we at all stimulated intellectually.
In that bleak environment, extracurricular activities were a lifeline and a godsend. It isn't an exaggeration to say that by the last couple of years of high school, I felt that I was going to work on my own favorite in-school extracurricular, the school newspaper, and that classes were an occasional annoyance that got in the way of my schedule! Meanwhile, I was learning the essence of my eventual profession, electronic engineering, on my own, with no support from school other than basic physics and math.
College was better, but still constrained. Not until I had my first full time job did I feel that the fetters were removed, and I could actually show what I knew and could do.
That isn't to say that we shouldn't teach the basics -- we must -- but I believe that there are much more engaging ways to do so.
6
@Josh Hill I guarantee there were kids in the classes you saw as boring who were enthralled. And I guarantee there were kids in the classes you saw as interesting who were bored.
And, though to your credit you admitted it in passing, I want to put additional stress on the fact that you couldn't have understood electronic engineering if your school hadn't prepared you with the boring basics in physics and math.
1
I taught high school for over 30 years in a top performing, selective public school here in Cincinnati. I found that the students who were most often bored were boring themselves and the top achieving students found interest in everything. They knew how to ask pertinent questions, how to listen, how to engage. They didn't whine and they didn't think they knew it all. Teachers should know their content, know how to impart it well using as many modalities as possible, and be passionate about what they teach. This passion is infectuous. If you can get excited about- I don't know- ants, and you know all about ants, you can get students to love ants too. Another thing, who said learning had to be fun? Learning can be fun, at times, but it's also hard work, sweat, and tears. Learning is life and life is sometimes boring. Get used to it.
88
@Silvana I agree that a teacher interested in ants will be able to get SOME students interested in ants, too. But there are some students so committed to paying no attention that they'll still be bored.
And that, pundits, politicians, and parents will tell us, is of course the teachers' fault.
9
I found, when I was in school in the 60s and 70s, that the biggest problem was time. There was always a rush to move on. Move to the next topic, introduce the next chapter, finish the discussion quickly, not to ask too many questions. Lest anyone think that this is confined to high school it's not. It's common in college classes too. The American obsession with speed gets gets in the way of mastering a subject in a meaningful manner. Understanding is sacrificed for knowing how to take multiple choice tests or get to the right answer without real comprehension of why it's the right answer. Worse still, students who begin to realize that there is more than one right answer are penalized because multiple guess tests don't allow for degrees of right or a discussion.
I wasn't bored in high school but I think it's because I was in a small school where I felt free to pursue my interests once the easy work was done. That changed when I entered college and every last thing was a multiple guess test. There were no discussions or real contact between professors and students. The rule of the day was to memorize. If you didn't memorize you didn't do well. I left college with a profound distaste for higher education. I never went on to get a graduate degree. My college education was far more superficial than my high school education.
Learning and curiosity go hand in hand. Schools should enhance that not diminish it.
4
Sounds like Montessori to me. This innovative form of education has been around, successfully implemented for decades. I have long wondered how long it would take to become mainstream. Want to look at a Living, breathing Montessori model ——— visit Near North Montessori in Chicago. It is full of ideas that can be expanded upon!
5
This is a phenomenal piece of writing!
2
This is the most important opinion piece in The Times today. It is grounded in real-world observation. Every educator--especially in our graduate schools of education (where indoctrination seems to have slowly overcome inquiry)-- should read this and take it to heart.
6
I am a teacher. It would have been interesting to query the teachers in addition to the students. My guess is that if the students are bored, their teachers are too. Nobody goes in to teaching to plug content into adolescents according to an algorithm. Humans and learning are dynamic and interesting by nature, it is a stultifying system that squeezes out innovation, independent thought, creativity and dynamism. This conversation is old. Teachers have been screaming for more support and more independence and permission to innovate, and the scream has become louder with the inception of the CC. Students should have the support they need, including physical and psychological health care available from a school clinic, food for anyone and everyone (no shaming 'free lunch' students), and books/supplies. They shouldn't have to sit on the dirty floor of their classrooms leaning close to their neighbor to share a book. Teachers should not have 180 students that they want to support emotionally, practically, and intellectually. Teachers should be trained and challenged to innovate, and mentored mentored mentored. And curriculum should be connected to the world, and require independence of teacher and student thought. We know these answers, but current standards are driven by regulation driven by fear driven by capitalist competition. Nothing is individual anymore - not teachers, students, or the work we do together. We are cogs in a data-obsessed economy; of course we are all bored!
50
@Jessica
I saw an interesting word choice in your paragraph, "train" teachers. Education is the one field that insists its participants cannot do the job when hired, then continues to insist they need training. How about hiring teachers to one year probation, followed by fulltime employment or not. No more teacher 'training' Education in the country has been going down the sinkhole since the advent of the 'field' of education. Hire degrees in field, offer fulltime employment to those with success. Cut out the nepotism. There is money for all extra curriculars if we remove the counselors, principals and general administrative detritus.
@elle So, don't train them to do the job, and remove the little bit of support they currently get instead of expanding it as is desperately needed?
That's the direction we've been headed, especially in Republican-dominated areas. It's failed as spectacularly as any reasonable person would expect. But people still prescribe it.
4
By fourteen, the necessary tools for work, daily life and later learning should be in place. But we persecute our young prisoners with algebra, literature and history - which don't meet their needs, or talents, or interests. It's as if we were to force young Albert Einstein to spend six hours a day on the football field, absorbing abuse - all the while solemnly assuring him that it's for his own good.
This forced schooling, by law and by social and economic pressure, is very new. In our fathers' time, even talented students were often forced from school. Those of us who love academics have cured this disease with a vengeance - forcibly prescribing our elixir for everyone. So, failing to get a diploma has become taboo. Since dropouts are considered deviant, youngsters must choose between daily pain or life-long damnation.
5
@Charlierf
According to you algebra (math), literature and history don't meet the needs of students, to which you probably should add languages and science, as for the latter math (algebra) is a basic requisite. That leaves out pretty much most of what is supposed to be taught in school and leaves your high school students free to pursue all those great extracurricular activities. I suppose your aim is to 'train" these youngsters to take over those jobs "stolen" by illegal immigrants.
1
My son just started high school and I think this article misses one crucial factor; the enormous pressure to fit in that students experience. Students all want to be the same so as not to attract any possibly critical attention. Given that, it is hard to inspire individual thought and creativity.
26
Well, sort of. But consider that many of the extracurriculars that are exciting to the students involve "showing off" to gain the applause or praise of an audience in one form or another. That gives the enterprise more zing to a teenager. There's nothing wrong with that. But some subjects just don't lend themselves to public praise and excitement, and yet are nonetheless essential to advancing in the academic or work world. Some of what a good student does simply involves work and boredom that they endure because they know it is wise to do so.
Some people are able to waste their high school years and still accomplish productive things later in life. But, on average, the students who know how to work hard and delay gratification are the ones who go far and have the most successful lives.
37
Project based learning is the way to go, along with getting involved in the community and having community resources get involved with your school. Check out our school, Northwest Passage High School, https://www.facebook.com/Nwphs/
4
Sure sounds like Ted Sizer's Essential Schools are the answer.
1
Plenty of research exists, showing how students learn best, but school is so underfunded and immune to innovation, that this research is never applied. For example, we know that sitting all day is bad for human beings, but schools insist on it. We know that children and young people learn best by doing a thing, but we insist that they memorize it instead. Research shows that students who own research by inventing the questions and research methods (with guidance) make amazing strides, but this doesn't fit the standard curriculum. And teachers are overburdened with large classes that demean their efforts by tying them to the task of simply keeping order and using quizzes and tests to see what the students are learning. All progress starts with a higher ratio of teachers to students and that starts with funding.
8
These days teachers are expected to teach to the test (partly to enrich testing companies) instead of engaging in rich, hands-on learning.
23
@Boggle Very true. In addition, a teacher's effectiveness is rated according to how well his/her students do on a particular standardized test. Student test results may also influence pay structure. Also, a huge portion of the day is spent on computer work. Students, who need challenge or who are academically delayed, are directed to a computer program purchased at great expense from the very companies that provide the tests. It is all financial in the end.
13
While I largely agree with the authors, there is one huge difference between a kid who chooses to spend time in an extracurricular activity and a kid who is forced to take a certain class. Intrinsic motivation kicks in in the former, many times it does not in the latter. Can teachers work to increase intrinsic motivation in kids that just don’t want to be in a particular classroom? Absolutely, but it only works some of the time for some students, and largely depends on the teacher/student relationship. That being said, it becomes exponentially more difficult building meaningful relationships as classroom size increases.
31
I was very fortunate to attend two radically different but spectacular high schools in the early Sixties. While I was a superior student, my teachers could have shut me down and made me fit some predesigned mold. Instead, they encouraged me. We got hands-on experience in our science classes, including options for independent study our senior year in my public high school-I studied crystal structures in chemistry class, creating and growing my own. I taught occasional classes in English and world history. But the extracurriculars were critical as well. And we had so many. I was essentially tricked into taking debate, a class and an extracurricular, by the woman who was also my world history teacher, debate coach, college counselor, overall mentor, surrogate mother and, until she passed this week, lifelong best friend. It determined my life, as I turned out to be a natural, and it set me on a path that led to Haeprvard Law School and a marvelous legal career.
The authors are idealists. Across the country, public education is being destroyed by underfunding and overbureauctatization. Teachers are paid poorly and respected less. Extracurriculars are being cut everywhere, except for major sports. For students to thrive as the authors would want, the opportunities and the fearless, unconventional teachers have to be there. For decades we have aggressively decimated both. We will as long as the GOP and the plutocrats rule us. For them, the less the future serfs know, the better.
38
While I believe strongly that high school students need a thorough grounding in history, geography, civics, the sciences, literature, the arts, and a foreign language to be good citizens, I agree that there are good ways and bad ways to impart this knowledge.
As I think back to my own long-ago high school experience, my most memorable experiences were in choir, the school paper, and class plays. In my academic courses, the exercises that required imagination were the most engaging. For example, one English teacher gave us a list of classic books and told us each to pick one, read it, and write a test about the plot, characterization, and themes.
A foreign language teacher had us third-year students write a satirical newspaper in the language that we were studying. We also wrote and performed one-act plays.
A history teacher asked us to imagine that we were someone of our own age and gender living in particular historic circumstances and to write a description of our hypothetical lives, using reference materials.
My grandfather, who was a math teacher, used to assign his students to figure out the heights of buildings or trees or to calculate the present value of investments.
However, today's K-12 teachers are overburdened, under-appreciated, underpaid, and struggling just keep it all together. We will need to provide better support in all aspects of their lives to facilitate their participation in the needed reforms.
80
I agree with much of this article. Just two observations. Great teachers are rare--just as great musicians or doctors are rare. Nothing can make up for the fact that one has a lousy one.
And school may sometime--maybe often--not be particularly exciting, certainly in comparison to all the other exciting things high school students can do--instagram, text, video game, etc.
2
While I don’t doubt the impact of a great teacher, sociologists of education tell us that teacher quality isn’t as important as some of the engagement-related factors that this article describes. A student’s peer group (i.e. the attitudes toward learning that they see reflected around them in school) is what research tells us is the most important defining factor on academic success.
8
@Geoman: If schools had a clear mission of supporting and promoting human complexity, instead of widgitizing the work of teachers and the intelligence of students, teachers would not have to be fantastically talented; rather, they could rely on an open and welcoming atmosphere in which to encourage students to take the risks necessary for learning. Unfortunately, the accountability crowd are all about widgitization.
6
I can't adequately express my frustration at this piece.
Thousands of progressive educators have been doing this for many decades, only to be ridiculed by politicians, ed reformers and traditionalists, who intentionally mischaracterize progressive education as permissive or unstructured.
I led such a school for 19 years and couldn't get the New York Times to print an Op-Ed if my life depended on it.
From a cognitive or neurobiological point of view, the value of student-centered discovery has been known for many, many years. The necessity of intrinsic motivation has been similarly known for many decades. The futility of grades and other extrinsic measures is similarly clear to scientists and real educators. The authors of this piece seem dazzled that 75% of 5th grades are engaged and only 32% of 11th grades are similarly engaged. Research showing the erosion of curiosity and engagement from 3rd to 8th grade is decades old.
And now, they publish this piece as though it's an epiphany?
I wrote a book proving this case scientifically and philosophically. It's #1,500,000 on the Amazon list. Howard Stern's not yet released book is #12. That's America.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1942146477/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
289
@Barking Doggerel agree that this is not new...I recall, back in college in the late 60s, reading books like Summerhill and Education and Ecstasy, etc, all promoting an experiential way of learning...also, I would suggest learning things in context...in high school English class we'd be given a Shakespeare play, then poetry from the 1800s, then a short story from the 1900s, then a novel by Dickens (all with no context)...in college I had a year long course in English Literature...it showed how literature grew and built upon, and rebelled against what came before (much more engaging and meaningful when there is a story that makes sense of the writings and writers)...
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@Jim, My daughter went to school in London for a month during the summer of 1992. (The US school system has much longer summer breaks than Britain.) She was at the same grade level as our friend's daughter, so it was a good fit. My girl was amazed that all the subjects were combined. They walked to a nearby commons (park) using street and satellite maps. They looked at plants, birds, and small mammals using identifying manuals. They returned to the classroom and discussed the history of the commons they had just visited, compared its use today to its purpose when it was first designated as a commons. Dividing into small groups, they used class computers to write up the sections of the study that each group chose to do, and they all read their completed works. AND there was NEVER any rote homework! AND it was like this every day, with different subjects combined in different ways, so that every week every subject was covered, including art and design. This was NOT a private school; it was a neighborhood government school. When the kids got met their parents at the end of the day they were speaking at least five foreign languages and a few different regional dialects of English. The whole system there has national standards for a national curriculum, for every school, public, private, or religious, and every school is inspected and given improvement advice every year. We were gobsmacked by the experience; and my daughter was in an expensive private school in New Orleans.
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@Patricia J Thomas
Patricia, what you write is anecdotally very interesting. However, might it be relevant that the system in England (I don't know if it applies to all of Great Britain) you describe has produced the incredible muddle and possible disaster of Brexit?
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Fantastic insight into modern high school. As a high school English and French teacher, I see the dichotomy between "core" academic classes and "elective" courses. This divergence occurs between the high stakes of core classes with respect to testing and moving through the curriculum versus the more investigative approach to a second language. In the latter, we enjoy practicing to use words; it's all new, so no one can ask, didn't you learn this back in 6th grade; and it's a fresh start for those who have fallen behind in core academics. The atmosphere of a second language classroom has some luxury to embrace curiosity and joy. After all, gleefully, French is not officially on the SAT or ACT. (But the skills for learning and using French will be.)
In my everyday work, I never forget that the very term "elective" means young people select to be in the course. No one ever elects to take 9th grade English. Or 10th grade English. Or 11th grade English. Or 12th grade English. And practically no one ever elects to be judged by "a" or "the" test. Additionally, many teachers don't love teaching these courses that are often wastelands of intellectual engagement in both curriculum and student apathy.
My challenge rests in teaching that words matter to students who have been shown through their educations that their words don't actually matter that much. At least in required core academic classes.
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I taught high school social studies for 30 years and no doubt was regarded as "boring" by many if not most students. My thought regarding the condition is that if one has a brain and finds him/herself bored, that is their fault. Want something to be interesting? Take a interest in it. If I were ever bored, I certainly would never admit it.
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@sharonm: I know just what you mean! Students feel it is a valid criticism of curricular materials to simply say, "This just doesn't interest me." Many students have now been taught that they deserve a choice in every aspect of their education. I cannot think of a more insidious practice for guaranteeing our young people fail to learn how to think critically.
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Alas, they have missed the real point of school. Boredom is not a problem to be solved. It is the whole purpose of school. They bored us intentionally. Learning to be bored and to not rebel is the "education" needed for the tedium of almost all work. How else can you get someone to work in a factory, to be a salesclerk, to stand all day holding a road sign? Societies where the young have not been trained for this have a difficult time enforcing discipline on the labour force.
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Schools are hamstrung in providing in-depth coverage in classes due to all the standardized tests, particularly the New York State Regents.
Get rid of these and teachers will not be forced to “teach for the tests.” Extracurricular activities are not subject to rigorous testing.
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I taught at a STEM Academy where the focus was on project based learning and the staff developed such an amazing curriculum that focused on new ways to explore the subject matter. However the district panicked because, since we were not following the district's scope and sequence exactly, our benchmark testing scores did not match those classrooms where the instructors taught to the test. Since we were a "data driven" district, the upper-level administration clamped down on the Academy and forced us to abandon many of the projects developed to enrich our students' education. Soon, in my World History class, it was back to one week on ancient Greece, another on the entire history of Rome, and then prepping for a benchmark exam which tested surface knowledge rather than depth of understanding. My regular students went from understanding how a catastrophic plague reduced the tax revenue of the Roman Empire and led to the Crisis of the Third Century to memorizing basic facts which they soon forgot in order to prep for the next benchmark. In the quest for "data" the joy of learning was destroyed. Soon the magic was gone and mind-numbing boredom re-entered our classrooms.
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@Scott Hieger Is your curriculum available? So many people are reinventing the wheel when it comes to PBL curriculum.
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@Susie...sure, I developed a multi-year curriculum where the students in my regular class created imaginary worlds that mirrored the historical eras they were studying. The students drew geographical maps of the continents where their civilizations were located and then created political maps of their lands. No magic or mythical creatures were allowed and the technology must fit the time period as well. So a student's classical empire had to have characteristics of Greece, Rome, Han China, Mauryan India, and/or the Maya. It was amazing to see what kids could create with their imaginations and, in addition, the students now saw value to learning history- they were going to need this information for their own civilizations. One final important factor helped I think. I sat among them and did this project all year long with the kids. We created together and helped each other to develop ever more complex societies. It was a magic period in my classroom. I was allowed the freedom to create along with my students and all of us were successful. Please note, I am not sure if I am allowed to give out my email address here.
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@Scott Hieger I took Latin in High School and had a Western Civ. course as well but Latin Focused a lot more on Golden Age authors like Cicero and Virgil. Western Civ. went from the Caesars to the Conversion of Constantine to the Fall of Rome and never got to the Crisis of the Third Century. I'll have to Google the Crisis and the plague which precipitated it. It doesn't surprise me that disease would wipe out the tax base. I've read Guns, Germs and Steel, so I'm aware of how much disease and environment play a role in history. Unfortunately, I never read Guns, Germs and Steel in school.
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I didn't find high school boring. And that was 50 years ago. My teachers were great -- knowledgeable, funny, caring. But then, they had degrees in their subjects and hadn't gone to schools of ed.
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@B. Then you were lucky, and you've unfortunately concluded that your lucky coincidence is the rule rather than the exception. Anyone who's been to college realizes that being an expert in your field is unlikely to translate into being able to teach it well. The only reason so many people can get away with bashing qualified teachers who've studied education, I think, is because a minority of adults have been to college.
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In a working class high school in Virginia, I participated in a caving club. Because of the club's affiliation with the National Spelunking Society, I learned about plate tectonics, geological epochs, and natural history.
Although I did not become a scientist, this club opened my world to wider possibilities than routine academics. It is too bad that more classes do not incorporate experiential learning into their curriculum. It would make classwork come alive!
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My son says exactly the same things about his HS. He does his best to do well but he feels that most of school has no relevance to getting him ready for the real world. He complains constantly about his peers. They are either slouchy modern cellbots or boring monomaniacal super ambitious conformists that are only interested in grades.
And yet as soon as he gets involved with something that he considers "real", he becomes 100% committed. Over the spring break he was willing to give up a big chunk of his time to get his life guard certification. In the evening he would turn down recreation to get his e-learning done for the next day. It was kind of shocking.
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Finally! At 76 years old, I still remember high school as the most boring place I ever had to suffer through. This at the time of life when curiosity and imagination are the most active, as well as the need to define for oneself the best way of living. I've always thought we should co-opt community colleges for the final two years of high school. Give kids--all of them!--a lot of choices, without set curriculums, and let's see what happens. Happier, more engaged kids with a lower dropout rate and possibly even better rounded, I'm betting.
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As a former high school teacher, and a parent who has graduated to kids from high school recently, I concur. I refer to our comprehensive high schools as "teenager jail". There is no imagination, there is no engagement and this is most profound in all of the core/required classes that students must take. Our daughter took more of the AP track and our son chaffed against the system and was in the general classes- basically he wouldn't do the work but could have done it. I found that it was often exceptional teachers who bucked the system that really engaged their students. I feel like public high school education is at a tipping point in the disruption economy and we have to think about how to allow for students to have more freedom within the system. For example, if why can't students do CR/NC paths, why are letter grades still so important? And these letter grades can prohibit students from participating in the extras that really do engage them...if you are below a 2.0 no sports, theater, etc. And don't even get me started on detention...really when was that ever a good idea? Waste of time! Two kids, two very different experiences, neither of them left me very impressed with my former career.
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