How could they motivate you to actually pay attention in class instead of playing with your phone? Honestly ask yourself if this "addressing motivation" would make geometry more interesting than tiktok.
not treat students like indentured servants? productively encourage them to pay attention instead of imposing austere zero tolerance policies? do you really think that people in ancient greece paid attention to every second of lecture because there weren't any phones?
could you, yes you, in your day to day life, handle being forced to go through school again? to learn something new every hour of every weekday and being given obligatory deadlines, not even being paid for the work, having to be there at like 7:30am, having even less control over your personhood and freedom just a few years after being born?
could you, yes you, in your day to day life, handle being forced to learn something new every hour of every weekday and being given deadlines, not even being paid for the work, having to be there at like 7:30am, having even less control over your personhood or freedom just a few years from being born?
The fuck you think everyone has to go through in their lives prior to being an adult.
This opinion is wild bud. Firstly, I disagree with the every hour of every weekday; once you take into account breaks, lunches, the much shorter working day, sports, and the way classes should usually be front-loaded with information then flipped for engagement, you’re maybe spending 10-15 hours a week “learning” and the rest practicing/applying. In my career I’ve generally had to spend much more than that each week learning.
Secondly you aren’t slaves, you have the option to down tools and just remain poorly educated without ramifications that endanger you immediate life/safety. That you don’t is as much to do with knowing it’s a shit idea, as it is societal pressure.
Thirdly, the people of Ancient Greece didn’t pay attention every second, but when their mind wandered they were at least able to move back to the topic at hand, tbh, if you miss enough context scrolling reels, you won’t be able to catch back up, and so many will just give up and stay on their phones.
Lastly, society around you pays for your education, it’s part of the social contract we live in. The resourcing of schools is already woefully low, please define how stretching those resources to accommodate completely preventable delinquency, is at all worthwhile. By draining time you aren’t only robbing the school, you’re taking from the students next to you who don’t want to spend their time acting like entitled children.
In my career I’ve generally had to spend much more than that each week learning.
Important point. If you're in a career that's at all demanding, you are going to be learning for the rest of your life. School prepares you for that. The specifics aren't important, what you should be learning in school is approaches to research, study, and problem solving. Schools could probably do more to make that clear.
could you, yes you, in your day to day life, handle being forced to learn something new every hour of every weekday and being given obligatory deadlines, not even being paid for the work, having to be there at like 7:30am, having even less control over your personhood and freedom just a few years after being born?
Bruh, you’re arguing with people who have already gone through school.
Yeah it sucks sometimes, we all know. We did it. The exact thing you’re bitching about and acting like no one else knows how bad you have it? We did it.
When adults tell teenagers that they understand, they aren’t just saying that because they want the teenagers to listen. They’re saying it because they remember when everything seemed so profoundly unfair. We really do understand…but you’re still wrong.
School sometimes sucks, but what you gain from it is remarkable. Take advantage of it, because work load only increases from here. You are at a time of your life where your major duty is to learn stuff and then prove you learned it. You may very well someday look back on this and go, “Damn, wish I’d appreciated it more.”
Telling a kid, "Yeah, it sucks and it isn't going to get any better," is the last thing you should tell a kid in these modern times. That's half the reason so many people are suffering mentally. The lack of an ability to affect change because stubborn goons with more power than them assume they know how things should be done.
I will admit that I could’ve added a more of, “but life does get a lot better when you’re the one making choices.” But honestly I think, in the near-dystopian society we labor through, that the boredom of school can be a helpful preparation for the monotony of entry-level work.
I’m trying to commiserate on some level. Life can be hard, I’m not going to lie about that. I dealt with my share of crushing depression in my 20s. But for many it is worth it, and education can help it be less difficult in the long run.
I guess the point I should be trying to make is that finding ways to actively engage with things that aren’t your preferred activity is a vital skill for enjoying life. School becomes less monotonous when you make an effort to enjoy it, not when you rely on your teachers for that and spend your time pining for your dopamine source. The same is true for shitty work. Embracing it and finding ways to keep your mind engaged can make terrible work far better. It’s how I survived years of working fast food, retail, and call centers until I finally got a job I truly enjoy in software.
And of course this carries throughout personal lives as well. Being able to put down the keyboard/controller/phone and clean the house is a necessity, one I still struggle with.
The lack of an ability to affect change because stubborn goons with more power than them assume they know how things should be done.
Yeah but this is, maddeningly, pretty much the way life is.
By the way, the point here isn’t that it would be bad if teachers could make school more engaging than YouTube and TikTok, but rather that it’s impossible for the average teacher to make school more engaging than a student’s phone. So get used to it. Required activities will never consistently outperform entertainment, at any point in your life.
This isn’t meant to be doom and gloom. It’s meant to be honest. Learn to love life, because life won’t always make loving it easy. But it will be worth it, at least in my experience.
Your statement would sound a lot less dramatic if not for the fact that literally everyone goes to school.
"Not being paid for your work" 🤣🤣🤣
My man, your book report is contributing nothing to society. Future scholars will not look upon it with awe. It is purely an exercise to help students as a whole develop as individuals.
Here's my question - how do you expect teachers, who are actually providing society with a much-needed service, who are already well understood to be overworked and underpaid, to productively encourage students to pay attention?
You can quit work and starve. You can quit school and get in a little bit of trouble. I don’t really see the equivalence here.
Children have lots of rights in this analogy, in fact in a great many places, they also have a right to be cared for by the state that adults don’t. Statutory service provision routinely is written in protection of children.
Weirdly, most people don’t have a right to take out and use their phone when working, and given that’s the thread topic it’s a decent sized hole in your argument. I worked a high-wage and technical role, white collar as it gets, and you know where my phone was when I was meant to be concentrating on my work, in my pocket. Know what would happen if I was fucking about on it when I had something important to do? Disciplinary, HR, threatened loss of livelihood. If you’re arguing you’re not being treated like adults, I have bad news for you.
Look, you’re not some oppressed underclass of unperson and your myopic determination to cast yourself as such is a genuine insult to people living under actual hardship.
First, school kids need rules, and school is good.
I also don't think 1 short comment deserves:
Look, you’re not some oppressed underclass of unperson and your myopic determination to cast yourself as such is a genuine insult to people living under actual hardship.
Most jobs don't really care if you're on your phone if you are on break. Some jobs don't care so long as work gets done. It seems your job or career is less forgiving than most.
I don't know why you're acting like a blanket ban is a good thing, and I don't know why you assume thinking that we should treat children and teenagers with a level of respect means I think that children are being treated like cattle.
Maybe you get off on enforcing broad policies, but I'm not a chud.