If you were to walk into a typical classroom mid-work session, you would see tired eyes and slouched bodies, with a detached atmosphere.
As students progress through their academic career, they appear to lose interest in most of the work. It seems like every assignment blurs together, each one lacking some sort of factor to make it stand out from the rest. Certain students retain their enjoyment for particular classes, but the vast majority lacks any sort of academic passion.
According to a survey conducted by the Walton Family Foundation, only around half of Gen Z students enrolled in middle and high school report doing something interesting in school everyday. Accompanying this statistic, less than half of the students felt motivated to go to school.
This absence of the desire to attend school is extremely harmful to the well-being of students overall, especially considering that much of a student’s lives revolve around attending school and completing homework.
Academic passion can make school seem easier and more satisfying. Research finds that academic passions play a role in developing students’ critical thinking skills, motivation, and academic success. On the contrary, insufficient passion can lead to a decline in academic performance and motivation, and an increase in stress and burnout.
Some students may just lack an interest in the content they are learning, but it also seems that school is fostering a disengaging environment, dragging students further away from academic enjoyment. Although it is up to the student to be attentive in class, can we really blame them for being unenthusiastic about attending school when each day brings the same uninteresting assignments?
According to an article published by Promethean, repetitive content, lack of relevance to real-world scenarios, and shortage of variety of media types significantly harms student engagement. As I navigate my school week, I run into these factors regularly. The unvaried and dull school work leaves me with hazy memories of weeks prior, as if my life is slipping away.
How can teachers counteract the scarcity of academic passion?
First, they can switch up their assignments every once in a while, featuring paper, chromebook, group, partner, and individual work. They can also teach in a variety of ways: utilizing both lectures and hands-on learning may engage students more than just using one. Additionally, teachers can connect their subject to real-world scenarios, allowing students to see how what they are learning may be applied in the future or in a less artificial setting.
Although it is mainly up to teachers to grab interest, students do play a role in it as well. By focusing on making studying more engaging — whether that is seeking a better environment, different method, or studying in the company of others — students may find more enjoyment in their schoolwork both inside and outside of class.
Students should also understand that academic work may not give the same dopamine hit that being on your phone does, but if you take time to understand and pay attention in your subjects you might find that school is more interesting than you originally thought.
The rise in student disengagement may be serious, but the problem is avoidable, and Haven should seek to fix it.
