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If you look closely at schoolchildren who yawn and fall asleep in class, distract classmates, constantly reaching for a smartphone, and at home answer the question “what was at school” as usual, we will see that they are not at all lazy and not hooligans. They just get really bored in class. How to get them interested in learning?
“The lesson is boring…” Schoolchildren often complain about this. But why do they generally lose the natural desire for children to learn new things? We tell you what can cause a loss of interest in learning and how to return this interest.
The child does not understand the material
Sometimes it is enough to be distracted by just 20 minutes, and now you have already missed an important explanation and have ceased to understand what it is all about. This is especially true of the exact sciences – mathematics, physics, chemistry. And it’s not easy to catch up with the class. After all, the teacher has to work with 30 children at the same time, and it will not be possible to devote a lot of time to each of them.
Misunderstanding grows like a snowball, and the child falls into a stupor – he not only does not understand the subject, but no longer tries to understand it.
What to do
The most obvious option is to study with a tutor. However, private lessons by themselves do not guarantee an individual approach. It is important that the tutor first talks with the child and parents and helps to set specific goals.
They can be as follows: close the gaps in the school curriculum and catch up with the class, prepare for an exam or olympiad, pump some particular skill, or even believe in yourself. After that, the tutor makes a plan for the next few weeks.
The plan should be short-term, because in the learning process the teacher will be able to assess the student’s skills and adjust the curriculum to his rhythm and interests, find explanation methods that the student understands well, and build a lesson so that it does not become a test of perseverance.
In our online school we build the process in this way: our teachers know how to help determine the desired learning outcomes, how to diagnose knowledge, how to draw up and adjust the curriculum. And this works better than a strictly school curriculum that ignores the needs of the child.
The child does not see his success
If a person repeatedly fails to do a task well enough, he loses interest in the task and decides that it is “not him”: no one likes to feel like a failure. But the existing school grading system is not designed for encouragement and motivation. No one says to a child: “Well done, today you learned 10 new words.” He often hears: “Only 10, but it was necessary 20! Sit down, trio.
In an ideal world, grade only means that the student has mastered the topic and can move on to the next one. But in reality, the assessment of knowledge often becomes an assessment of the child’s personality – hence the scornful definition of “triple student” and the proud “excellent student”.
Despite the fact that in the classical scale there are 5 points, only 3 of them are significant. One and two are non-passing points, and there is actually no difference between them. The triple can also include the utmost efforts of a child who is not given a topic, and laziness is good.
Even good grades say little about the progress a student has made. But there is also a human factor – teachers can “pull” pets or put “fours” out of pity.
What to do:
Since the school grading system motivates almost no one, reflects little real effort, and says nothing at all about concrete progress, a different demonstration of achievement is needed. For example, we decided to come up with a different system – with a 10-point scale and visual progress dynamics.
In a personal account on the educational platform, both the child and his parents see the sum of all his efforts – how many lessons he went through and how much homework he did, how many mistakes he made and how many tasks he completed correctly.
Don’t like the teacher
Sometimes problems arise in the same lessons – a child can enthusiastically write essays and solve equations, and literally fall asleep in social science or physics. Maybe the teacher was unable to find an approach to your child or his manner of presenting the material is really boring.
Not all teachers have teaching talent. And few school teachers can find the time to diversify assignments and add spark to the lesson: teachers in public schools are overwhelmed with paperwork.
What to do
Alas, to endure teachers who do not believe in a child sometimes means to miss a favorable moment for its development. If there are reasons not to change schools, it is worth changing the teacher – and it may turn out that your child is much more capable than the previous one seemed.
Take, for example, school essays: a teacher can show that writing well is not a talent, but a skill: there are clear rules and algorithms for this task that do not exclude creativity.
The same with mathematics: if the teacher stops talking about the “mathematical mindset” and leads the child to understanding through dialogue or play, it turns out that everything is super with both creativity and abstract thinking.
Too academic
School curriculum can actually be boring – especially in middle and high school. For some reason, it is believed that if learning is exciting, then this is not serious training and it will not bring benefits. Although psychologists regularly prove that we learn faster when we are interested and when there is an element of play in the process.
For example, American biologists Gabe Zimmerman and Christopher Cunningham* found out back in 2011 that the game helps to remember information for a longer period. Game mechanics are used even in adult education. In language learning apps designed for an adult audience, there are elements of storytelling, rewards, game tasks, quests and competitions with other users.
But for some reason, we give children black-and-white textbooks full of formulas and dull exercises, and expect them to understand the beauty of mathematics and physics. Or they will fall in love with the great Russian language, having studied the texts of Turgenev and Prishvin, although they watch Netflix and listen to Morgenstern.
What to do
Since the usual materials cannot compete with cartoons, TV shows, comics and video games, then you need to find others. Well, if you live in a big city, there is probably a museum somewhere in the neighborhood where children’s tours and science shows are held. They will help to interest children in physics, chemistry, biology and history.
Educational real quests are also great to make the game useful. No quests – try board games: there are many of them that will help you improve math, geometry, English, Russian, and develop logical thinking skills.
The online learning format provides new opportunities for turning learning into an exciting game. For example, we include interactive tasks even in lessons for high school students, and we build all tasks on modern material. Because calculating how much it will cost to shoot one episode of your favorite series is much more interesting than solving problems about how many tractors a factory has produced.
Maria Shchekic, Skysmart English product manager, methodologist and teacher with 13 years of experience, notes: “Skysmart English lessons for children often contain entertaining content: cartoons, songs, chants (rhyming verses to which you can dance and clap), fairy tales. It may seem that this is a time for pause and rest. In fact, such tasks have a great educational effect.
Cartoons help to understand and train the communicative situation, and songs and chants help to better remember new words and constructions due to their repeated repetition to a cheerful melody. Interesting and engaging content will help increase the motivation to learn a language and bring quick and long-term results.”
No motivation
The child simply does not understand why he needs to study the internal combustion engine and complex sentences. How will all this help you make money, become a cool blogger, or gain authority in the classroom? Adults also do not help when they answer all questions: “It will come in handy in life.”
What to do
It is important to show how knowledge will help the child not in the distant future, but right now. If you learn English, you can watch English-language tiktokers and translate your favorite songs. Literacy will help a blogger make good content.
Knowing the laws of physics will help you move a heavy box with almost no effort, and perform almost magic tricks – for example, make a ping-pong ball levitate.
About expert
Alexandra Perfilova — Head of Mathematics at Skysmart Online School.
* Zichermann, Gabe and Christopher Cunningham. Gamification by Design—Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, 2011.