by Michael Kellichner

Created on: April 24, 2009

It's not that teenagers do not want to learn. They do.
They just don't want to learn what schools teach. Why?
Because it's boring to them. The way material is presented, the way it is expected to be memorized and regurgitated, how when they want to be out learning about the world they're forced to sit in classrooms for seven hours a day learning from a teacher who (more and more) is one of those who fall under the heading "those who cannot do go on to teach." Teachers don't respect their students as people, refuse to acknowledge that students care about things other than Trigonometry or Civics, and attempt to punish students when they act out against the rigid system imposed upon them.

The school system is so flawed that it does not appeal to a teen's desire to learn. Go up to a teenage boy and ask, for example, who won the football game on Friday night. Though this is a stereotypical scenario, chances are that he will not only tell you who won, but also game highlights, player stats, and what referee calls were contested. Ask another teen about the book he's reading (not the one for classthe one that he keeps on his nightstand and never takes to school because it's fantasy or sci-fi, and that's not acceptable reading for a classroom) and he can most likely (if he's enjoying it) tell you all about the characters, the plot, maybe even some of what it all represents, if there is any significant substance to the book beyond plot and characters.

In today's fast paced, bells and whistles society, teens want to be entertained and they want to be entertained now. This is the reason why books such as the Twilight
series is so popularthe writing and story is atrocious, but it's entertaining without having to give it much thought.
Why read East of Eden when you could watch the movie adaptation? Yet the school system continues to teach like society has not drastically changed in the past ten, fifteen, or twenty years.

Does this mean that all teachers should be all flash and pizzazz in the classroom? Certainly not. But take, for instance, high school English. Even teens who love to read and write hate high school English.
The literature that is forced upon teens is often the most boring, but most easily taught, selection from the greatest writing ever done. Instead of reading a contemporary that many teens enjoy reading (say, Vonnegut), English classes subject them to Steinbeck, whose writing, while wonderful for the time he represents, comes off as bland to teens looking for entertainment.
Instead of reading Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises, with its excitement of bullfights and alcohol (something that teens know all about but the schools pretend they don't), they're subjected to A Farewell to Arms, which most teens despise. There are plenty books of great literary quality that are both enriching and entertaining, but they are hard to teach.

Teens want to learn.
They want to go out and experience things, but are met with ever increasing boundaries as their curiosity grows. The problem is that they want to learn different things than what adults want to teach them. But the fact that teens can t ell you nearly everything about a hobby or a passive interest, but nothing they learned in school doesn't mean they don't want to learnit just shows that the system in place to teach them needs revamping to help facilitate teens' desires to learn by doing and to discover things on their own rather than having it fed to them through the medium of a dried out teacher.

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