At the Very Least, Should the Ass Be In Class?
What should we do with high school students who skip classes and don’t do the coursework? Fail them? Or let them get credit for the course by completing a study pack provided by an outside vendor?
I say hell yeah to option #2.
The takeaway message from students who say things like, “I want to get done with school the easiest way possible,” is not that the students are lazy or too smart and bored to be bothered with the work. The message is that many high school students don’t see any relevance to their lives and interests in their coursework. They don’t have much, if any, choice in which courses they take, and they certainly don’t have any input into how the school is run. They go to school because they’re compelled to by state law (at least until they’re 16 in most states) and not because they want to.
They’ve lost the desire to learn because the schools aren’t interested in students’ desire to learn. Schools are interested in pushing as many kids through the same program as efficiently as possible, no matter how diverse those kids’ interests may be. For the most part, students are treated the same way and must take the same basic coursework. If you don’t expect some students to be completely uninterested in schools like that, you’re deluding yourself.
In the corporate training world, a basic premise is that whatever training program you’re building had better be relevant to the target audience because that audience seeks out skills and information that are relevant to their careers. They’re extremely tactical in their approach to training, and they don’t suffer foolish training programs gladly.
For some reason, educational theorists assign this premise specifically to “adult learners,” as if relevance and purpose don’t matter to “child learners.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone who has ever watched a child try new things — like learning to walk or learning to read — knows that children approach everything they do with a purpose. Unfortunately, traditional schools don’t allow children to pursue purposeful activities; all activities are selected by the adults for the children. By the time high school rolls around, who can blame them for wanting to get out of that environment with the least effort required?
