Are most children so uninterested in learning?

[komencanto]

I am currently spending my last few weeks as an exchange student in Spain. I often do English classes with the students here, with mixed results.
It has been fun trying to explain Cricket and AFL to them, but trying to do standard lesson work has been more difficult.

Today I did a class with 5 kids of 14 years. I could hardly get them to do anything. We were reading a basic reader of a book called The Happy Prince. These students have been learning English for at least 7 years.

First off I noticed the 2 girls were doing palm reading. I couldn´t stop them doing it all the way through the lesson. When I asked if it was just for fun or if the girl really believed it, I found that she thought it was quite real and claimed to "study" it. I decided it wasn´t my right to turn the lesson into a skeptics class, so I didn´t bother to continue with it.

Most of them said they knew just about nothing of English and it was clear they understood very little of the book.

However, I found that 4 of the 5 intended to leave school the following year, didn´t consider their studies important. They mostly figured they could get a job working in bars, delivering advertising, writing advertisements in shop windows, etc. This despite a 16% unemployment rate in the country.

I tried to explain to them that it would be very difficult to find a job without some sort of skill, but I guess I wasn´t convincing enough.

In the end I tried to get through something of the book, but the level was too high for them and they weren´t interested anyway. If I tried reading it or having somebody else read it, then they talked over the top, and if I tried to make them shut up, then we never ended up working at all.

Bah, it´s times like these I don´t like teaching so much =)

 

[Nyarlathotep]

I think it varies from child to child. I also think their home situation has a lot to do with it. It has been my observation that if the parents value learning and encourage it, the children usually will follow suit. If the parents seem uninterested, so will the children. It isn't always true, but it seems to be the case more often than not, from what I have seen

 

[komencanto]

I´ld say you´re almost certainly right. What can one do then?

 

[Luke T.]

I have a 14 year old son. Kids that age hate it when you talk about what they do now will have an impact on their future. They can't think beyond the coming weekend.

My son just passed up an opportunity to go to a science and math intensive magnet school. It is totally free and they only go to school four days out of the week. But you have to live in the dorm there. The school is only a half hour from where he lives, so he could easily go home on the 3 day weekends every week, but that is not good enough for him. The tuition is free, everything is free, and the kids that graduate from there usually get scholarships to college because the education they get is stellar.

He doesn't care that it could alter the course of his life for the better. He isn't ready to live in a dorm away from home. I guess I can't blame him. He is only 14, after all. Oh, well.

 

[Malachi151]

I´ld say you´re almost certainly right. What can one do then?

I've though about being a teacher... but nah... But I relaly feel for you, I mean it really is so important too.

Here is my blind advice.

Try to develop a mystery.

I think that children like to "figure something out".

So presenting learning not as "being told" but as them trying to "figure something out", may help. How do you do that in all cases? I don't know

I think you have to do it as a whole system type thing that is constant day to day, like every day is supposed to be solving a new part of one big mystery, etc. I dunno, that's just a thought.

You may even use work as "the mystery". Start tryign to get to figure out what they can do and how they are going to do it, and things like that..

 

[Nyarlathotep]

I´ld say you´re almost certainly right. What can one do then?

That's the tough part. If I had a good answer, I would go into politics. I think our society discourages an interest in learning both in children and adults. It seems that way in the US at least. My daughter is 13 and she reads at a college level, She gets straight A's. This gets her nothing but grief at school and I am willing to bet that despite her intelligence she would have an easier time getting scholarships if she had an average intelligence but could throw a basketball around really well. It seems to be a societal thing and until society stops stigmatizing intelligence, I don't think it CAN get better.

 

[komencanto]

This gets her nothing but grief at school...

Don´t tell me. Depending on who I´m with I often have to dumb down my language so that I don´t seem too intelligent. Bah.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Don´t tell me. Depending on who I´m with I often have to dumb down my language so that I don´t seem too intelligent. Bah.

Been there done that myself, and one of the things that makes her so unpopular is that she WON'T dumb herself down.

If you watch television, the intelligent characters usually are either socially inept geeks or villians. I don't blame the media for this because i think that is how most people think of intelligent people and the media just reflects it. That is the attitude that needs to change. I wish I knew how.

 

[Chaos]

Been there done that myself, and one of the things that makes her so unpopular is that she WON'T dumb herself down.

If you watch television, the intelligent characters usually are either socially inept geeks or villians. I don't blame the media for this because i think that is how most people think of intelligent people and the media just reflects it. That is the attitude that needs to change. I wish I knew how.

It is not only TV. It is really endemic in fantasy novels. The wizards (about the smartest people in those settings) are mostly villains, Gandalf and Merlin being two notable exceptions. More often than not, the hero is someone who thinks with his biceps - think of Heracles, Conan, etc.

Oh, by the way, I was having a tough time at school, too. Brighter, or at least better in things like maths and grammar, than most, and ridiculed as a grind. Awful in sports, and ridiculed as a "looser".
But I digress. Thanks for listening to my rant.

 

[komencanto]

Sigh, I guess us skeptics are all just pathetic nerds then =)

 

[Chanileslie]

Hey, better a pathetic nerd than a gullible fool!

Anyway, nothing wrong with being a nerd. We get to play all the good games that require more than just luck, and we get to use our imaginations. What more can you ask for?

 

[komencanto]

What more can you ask for?

Well now that you mention it.... =)

 

[Suggestologist]

I am currently spending my last few weeks as an exchange student in Spain. I often do English classes with the students here, with mixed results.
It has been fun trying to explain Cricket and AFL to them, but trying to do standard lesson work has been more difficult.

Today I did a class with 5 kids of 14 years. I could hardly get them to do anything. We were reading a basic reader of a book called The Happy Prince. These students have been learning English for at least 7 years.

First off I noticed the 2 girls were doing palm reading. I couldn´t stop them doing it all the way through the lesson. When I asked if it was just for fun or if the girl really believed it, I found that she thought it was quite real and claimed to "study" it. I decided it wasn´t my right to turn the lesson into a skeptics class, so I didn´t bother to continue with it.

You could have asked her to read your palm -- in English. Could you not have?

Most of them said they knew just about nothing of English and it was clear they understood very little of the book.

However, I found that 4 of the 5 intended to leave school the following year, didn´t consider their studies important. They mostly figured they could get a job working in bars, delivering advertising, writing advertisements in shop windows, etc. This despite a 16% unemployment rate in the country.

I tried to explain to them that it would be very difficult to find a job without some sort of skill, but I guess I wasn´t convincing enough.

Were you telling them that? Or were you engaging them in thinking about the details of their planned futures? They have a vague idea of what they want to do right now -- vague ideas seem easy, but if you go into detail -- the more detail, the harder it seems, the less they will continue to like the idea. Could you have transitioned part of this into English? They want to explain their plans, probably, if you tell them that they have to do it in English -- would that help motivate them to learn or use some?

In the end I tried to get through something of the book, but the level was too high for them and they weren´t interested anyway.

Who selected a book that was at too high a level for them? If something isn't working, why do people continue doing it? Because they don't know what else to do.....

If I tried reading it or having somebody else read it, then they talked over the top, and if I tried to make them shut up, then we never ended up working at all.

Bah, it´s times like these I don´t like teaching so much =)

You shouldn't have tried to shut them up. It was a very small language class -- you could have redirected to conversation in English rather than plodding through a boring book. Could you not?

 

[komencanto]

Re: Re: Are most children so uninterested in learning?

You could have asked her to read your palm -- in English. Could you not have?

Thats a good point, I should have tried that. Unfortunately it didn´t occur to me. However, I doubt she would have accepted, and probably just continued in Spanish. You can´t make people speak english unfortunately =/

Were you telling them that? Or were you engaging them in thinking about the details of their planned futures? They have a vague idea of what they want to do right now -- vague ideas seem easy, but if you go into detail -- the more detail, the harder it seems, the less they will continue to like the idea. Could you have transitioned part of this into English? They want to explain their plans, probably, if you tell them that they have to do it in English -- would that help motivate them to learn or use some?

That´s what I usually do, but as always, this group just didn´t have the level for conversation. That´s always very annoying, it´s much easier to teach advanced students than beginners.

Who selected a book that was at too high a level for them? If something isn't working, why do people continue doing it? Because they don't know what else to do.....

The teacher who gave me the students because that is the work that they should be working on this year =/
I don´t know whether you can change it or not, but I doubt it.

You shouldn't have tried to shut them up. It was a very small language class -- you could have redirected to conversation in English rather than plodding through a boring book. Could you not?

Yeah, in the end I did pretty much give up the book and just talk with them, sticking English in slowly every once in a while. But the problem is that they have to do that work at some point because it´s in the curriculum.

Oh well, it was a learning experience, next time I´ll be able to do better =)

 

[Some Friggin Guy]

This reminded me (don't laugh) of an episode of WKRP in Cincinnatti. It actually helped me in my Lit tutoring I do from time to time.

The episode deals with a crash course in the construction of an atom to a potential high-school drop out who runs with a gang. Venus Flytrap (according to the episode, a former teacher) explains the atom in terms of gangs. The moral: anyone can learn anything, but you need to find the access point to their regular interests.

For another example, I always hated lit and reading. I never quite got it. Finally, I had a teacher who figured out that I was a big fan of codes. He proceded to explain metaphore, similie, themes, etc as a form of code which the reader needed to crack. Once it was explained to me in that manner, I figured it out. I now read an average of a book a day and tutor students in English Lit in my spare time.