Student motivation turning south

Students constantly find themselves lacking motivation for school, leading them to feel disinterested in learning. Our nation’s student work ethic includes kids cheating off each other to at least receive a completion grade on an assignment. A majority of the students who do try, only try to pass their grade level. Students lack motivation due to systematic issues with the school systems in America, students’ living conditions and the nation’s problems in general.

Children who can comprehend what occurs in their household and in the world may seem heavily impressionable, especially if they can access the internet. If a child’s parents or older siblings talk about their opinions on an issue or topic, the child will most likely grow up feeling the same way. Younger siblings typically love to hear about an older sibling’s experience at their different school and usually, older siblings talk about all the negatives of school to or around their younger siblings. Depending on their relationship, the younger sibling will automatically agree with them. Regularly hearing negative descriptions of school no matter what age might cause one to dread school even more than they already did.

“I remember talking to my little sister about high school when she was in middle school. I mainly told her about all the bad things like how I didn’t really like most of the teachers. I don’t think she was looking forward to high school because I didn’t give her good things to look forward to. Now she’s in high school and she thinks it’s nothing like I described. I just think everyone has a different experience,” NC alumni Logan Saunders said.

If students themselves gain a negative experience at school, it may build more of these thoughts and feelings for the rest of their life as a scholar. It can also feel difficult to come back from a negative moment and build a better one in school. Ignoring something embarrassing that happened can also take a lot of time and effort. However, numerous people find positive experiences easier to remember rather than negative.

The curriculum holds an extreme amount of power over student motivation. If a specific class takes a large amount of energy out of a student, then they go to another core class that requires the same amount of energy.  In certain classes, teachers should decide to give their students a fun assignment or one that requires them to interact with each other. This encourages engagement and excitement in the classroom instead of sitting and working in silence for over an hour. 

“School is sometimes fun. I remember, especially in math, if I understood what we were learning, then it would actually be fun and not boring. Maybe schools should add in a fun activity during school in addition to our lunchtime. I think it would help a lot of students actually look forward to going to school and learning in general,” NC alumni Adrian Gonzalez said.

Students find it increasingly difficult to stay motivated in school. Multiple things can encourage students, but teachers and faculty just need to recognize them. Blaming lack of motivation on the student’s attention span deflects the actual problem and causes students to feel inadequate. Schools need to find better ways to make their lessons interesting or at least more engaging for students.