“School has become about cheating the system and figuring out how to pass while doing the least amount of work and learning possible.” As I was scrolling through my phone last weekend, I came across this comment stated by the high school teacher and creator, Amber Maarie.
It is no secret that many things on the internet are strategically created to be provocative and generate discussion. I assume this comment was no different but, despite the exaggeration and generalization, I reflected on my own experience as a current high schooler, facing the challenging times of mental health epidemics, social media addiction and AI. I could not help but ask the question; what has school become? A place to accumulate knowledge or a thing students have to go through to check it off the list?
Based on my own personal experience and from what I have observed on our campus, I have noticed students’ ability and willingness to engage in class decline. I have also noticed that the amount of effort that students put in their coursework has also decreased. It has even come to a point where I have heard my peers state that they no longer see fulfillment in attending school. It goes without saying that this is not evrey student and I do not mean to discredit any student that does not relate to these descriptions. But I think it is safe to say that this surge of indifference towards learning within students has become more prominent.
Who is to blame? This sentiment does raise the question; why is this happening?
As attention spans become shorter and devices become more and more present in classrooms, I think that it is no surprise that classes have become particularly unproductive. With a usal class consisting of students switching tabs between WhatsApp, Instagram and Geomatry Dash while a teacher is giving a lecture. This is especially problematic because students are no longer learning or engaging in class. Instead classes have become 80 minutes of killing time by mindlessly scrolling through their laptops and ipads.
In addition, I have noticed that in order to combat the ineffectiveness of physically giving students lessons, many teachers have decided to go for the independent work route, by giving students a brief explanation of the assignment and letting them manage their own lesson. Frankly, I think that it is no surprise that this method also proves to be inefficient since many of the students will not complete the work (occasionally, myself included). Personally, I think this strategy just drains students even more, not only making lessons unengaging but also less personal, adding to the sentiment of students feeling isolated from their classrooms. One could argue that teachers could use completion marks and hold students accountable for completing their assignments despite their resistance, but realistically, students would just turn to AI to complete the work for them, ultimately, gaining nothing from the lesson themselves.
How could we fix this? Despite my dissatisfaction with the current state of classes, that does not change the fact that Graded has amazing educators and a group of lively students. I truly believe our school has the potential to be above the spread of technologies that are currently keeping students from fulfilling their role as a learner. Some ways of achieving this would be to not let devices dominate classrooms.
Nowadays students enter classrooms and immediately place their computer or laptop on their desk. This is incredibly detrimental towards student engagement. Instead, I suggest teachers have students place their bags containing their devices in a corner of the class or by a wall. I know that this is ideally a tactic that is used in lower school but I genuinely think that this is the only way we can cause a drift between students and their urge to be on a device. I would also find it helpful if teachers would give more face to face lessons that are not framed within a screen. Personally, I love hearing lectures, personal stories, doing group activities, even watching videos and documentaries as a class. I even feel more motivated doing a printed worksheet than doing work on my computer and I am sure I am not the only one. Nowadays, kids and teenagers are constantly on their screens evrey second of the day, I think it would be beneficial even towards their own wellbeing for classes to be a place where they can escape the virtual world and actually interact with the real one for a change.
Of course, I understand that there are some activities in school that need to be done through a device. I also understand that there are environmental and logistics factors involved but, I think it comes to a point. Young people today are being more and more consumed by devices each day, with the multitude of apps, constant notifications and the surge of AI, it is clear that there is no limit. Nowadays what students need most of all is a place where they can be with their peers in person, a place where they can have real discussions, hear real voices, make real connections. Not live through a screen.
