|
"School isn't about students doing things that they find fun or interesting, it is about learning. Sometimes it is about learning how to make yourself do work you don't find interesting. It is great when students love what they are learning but that is not going to happen all of the time."
In a perfect world, yes. In the real world, you will get through to the bottom 70% of the class by making learning fun and entertaining. You can teach English and History in many ways. Entertaining storytellers will have no trouble finding an angle to get people interested in even the worst of novels. Unfortunately, the average teacher is not a master storyteller.
The top 20% (I made that number up) of students are self-motivated, will get through the work as required, and get on to the next unpleasant job. The other 80% need to be sold on it.
School time is expensive and limited, and should be applied to useful topics. History is valuable - democratic citizens need to know the basics, and how to avoid repeating history's mistakes. Old literature and poems do not fall into this category. People will find ways to entertain themselves; the hard work bits should not be last century's entertainment, but important skills, including history, science and math.
All in my opinion, of course - I'm not claiming these are self-evident facts.
|