Kids and Teens ( Please Sir, I Want to Learn Some More )

Kids and Teens ( Please Sir, I Want to Learn Some More ) Please Sir, I Want to Learn Some More

                                          Please Sir, I Want to Learn Some More

As a high school English teacher, I know a thing or two about enthusiasm. Rather, I know when I am trying to inspire it and when kids are losing it. It's now popular thinking to regard the industrial revolution model of schooling as incredibly passé and not at all engaging for the poor blighters who are subjected to it day in day out. We want pedagogies dammit. And engaging ones at that.

Step into any Australian classroom now and you're bound to see the multitudinous efforts made by teachers to engage their students in the act of learning: grouped tables, posters, colours, music, books, interactive whiteboards, displays, iPads. Thousands of dollars in resources designed purely to engage students in the classroom. Not to mention the money and time the teacher spends on his or her own professional development. Books, seminars, workshops all delivering the latest in student-engaging, outcome-improving pedagogies for the inquiring teacher.

And, after the last inspirational quote has been tacked to the wall, the last PowerPoint slide typed, the last YouTube clip cued, are our students eagerly awaiting the next chapter of their educational journey? Sadly not. How the room still groans when the request to complete even the smallest amount of reading or writing is issued. When pressed for elaboration, or the application of critical thinking, how the eyes still roll and the mobiles still flash beneath the desk.

Australia likes to refer to itself as the 'lucky country' and for the past decade our luck has certainly been in. The mining boom of Western Australia has opened the doors to riches untold for many workers without the need of a tertiary, or sometimes even a secondary education. In classrooms across the nation choruses of "I'm going to work on the mines" were to be heard, accompanied by the resolute closing of textbooks and minds.

Unfortunately, the boom has bombed. Well, shrinking at any case. But did anyone think to tell the children? Maybe paying attention in Economics class might have been a good idea.

Apathy towards learning exists in classrooms across Australia. Despite employing all the resources a First World education system has to offer, teachers are still faced with ambivalence in the classroom. Learning isn't valued as the stimulating process of acquiring new knowledge and exploring ideas. Everything else aside, exams, graduation, university, employment, in its purest form learning is a way of developing interesting human beings. Human beings who can converse across cultures and subjects, who are curious, and who are equipped to seek answers when faced with the dilemmas and crises that life is apt to present.

Is apathy the new crisis in our classrooms? Not yet. There are fantastic things happening in Australian schools, and students are most certainly reaping the benefits of having dedicated and well-resourced teachers. Perhaps our focus should fall on the messages we are giving our students about school. School is not a chore. It is not a means to an end. It is not free childcare. It is a vital step in the development of interesting and successful human beings.

Please Sir, I Want to Learn Some More