I feel like the shift in education is about engaging students in a way that helps them to learn. I think it's quite an ideal shift but I think that we've perhaps forgotten why students need to be engaged to begin with.
In some ways, I feel like what is taught in classrooms and how it applies to the outside world is so disconnected that students don't feel motivated to learn. They don't see the purpose of what they learn because they don't see how it can apply to their daily lives. I think that in showing the practical applications to learning, students will have at least a smidgen more of interest than thinking "this is something I have to do. I don't know why I have to do this, but I somehow should feel the importance of it." This abstraction of the importance of education discourages students because there's all this weight put on it, but when students ask why they have to learn chemistry, often times, teachers and parents have a hard time answering. To say it'll open up opportunities disregards the fact that long-term success seldom works on students. To the ambitious and the driven, such answers will suffice. However, the reasons given for education/learning are very much like the reasoning for working out. It focuses on the long term results: "you'll live longer"; "it's better for you in the long run"; "you'll eventually have a nicer body in the far away future after blood, sweat, and tears." However, often times the short-term gratification of not doing schoolwork will outweigh the long-term promise of success.
While I think there's quite a bit of good work being done out there to motivate and engage students, I think that perhaps the reason why we even have to start doing this should be examined.
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