Chapter 6: Motivation and Boredom

In our society most teenagers go to school and understand that it is important even if they do not want to go. They understand that school is important for social and academic growth and they see it as a way to survive in society. Even if students want to go to school it can lead to boredom and teachers must make sure that it does not. Kids can recognize when a teacher is passionate and wants to teach. These kinds of teachers get kids motivated and the teacher can get the kids to learn. It is also important for teachers to discuss issues that kids care about and connect the teaching to the real world. Nobody is going to want to learn if the lesson will not help them in the real world. Other ways to keep students motivated are to make sure that you give group work, make sure the students understand the topic, care about the students, and do not assign overwhelming amounts of homework. It is very important to make sure that students are motivated because otherwise it would be impossible to teach anything.

I found the part where they discuss that kids actually do want to go to school to be accurate. Even though it may seem that kids do not want to go to school I think that most teenagers do. They really do see it as a place where they can learn and grow. The social connections that they develop are reason enough for many students; however, it is important for teachers to make it so that students are coming for more than just the social factor and that they are actually learning. I also found the list of what the students like to read to be interesting. I like to read many of the same types of books and I felt like doing a survey to collect data so that I could run some analysis on it.