are lazy kids really in the wrong?

[SleepyWitch]

this is a follow-up thread to the one about declining reading rates.
can we really blame unmotivated or lazy pupils for not wanting to learn?
I'm not talking about poor or socially disadvantaged kids. I mean those kids who come from average/ lower-middleclass/middleclass families and can't be bothered to work hard at school. on the one hand, we expect kids to study, but on the other hand we've got whole industries that are targeted at and depend on kids as consumers, e.g. fashion, cinemas, play station, pop music, TV, computer games..., most of our high-tech industries partly depend on young people... so 'we' (our economies, goverments, society etc) expect those kids (or their parents) to buy playstations, CDs and so on. How can we expect them to buy a playstation but not spend lots of their time playing on it? do we expect them to buy it so as to boost our economy, but then use it for decoration purposes only and bury themselves in their textbooks and lit classics?
what if all the kids in a large economy like the U.S., U.K., Germany, Japan etc were to throw away their playstations, clothes, CDs, DVDs, games and gadgets, and spent all their free time studying and reading? wouldn't our economies collapse?
any thoughts?

[Pensive]

I am in high-school and belong to middle-class and I study four-five hours a day (if taken average) these days leaving aside my school time which is six hours and from the previous year I have not got marks less than eighty percent, many times even get more than ninety percent overall (which is an A). I don't think I would get much time to read novels and get on internet (lit-net and instant messenger and wikipedia and other stuff!) if my parents had me much busy in house-work (thanks to my mother who does house-work mostly and even Father helps at times. I am quite lazy) or if my parents made me study like the father of that friend of mine (in fact my father often annoys me too in this case even when he knows I get satisfactory grades, but my mother balances it and my father is not even that much on extreme, like that of my friend, 'yet') or if a thing such as tea never existed (caffeine makes the sleep vanish away) and I spend time on my hobbies thus and get my studies done too. I have friends who even study six-seven hours a day leaving aside the school time. Some of them get more marks than me many times but some of them even get less than mine.

In fifth grade I had a friend who studied for six hours a day (and I never understood how could a father expect a fifth-grader's syllabous to be this much), leaving aside the six hours in school and in total it would be: 12 hours studies out of twenty four. Even though there is a break in school, but still it's considered to be a time which we don't spend by our own choice so I have included all six hours from school. I think my average study time in fifty grade would have been two hours per day. But this friend never got more than eighty percent marks while I would often get more than ninety-percent marks.

She was not a dumb-brain, but the problem was that her father used to a kind of force her to sit and study and all the time it was always very difficult to concentrate on studies for her. What else can you expect then? I even used to think eighty percent was a lot in such a condition when the average percentage in our class used to be fifty (and ours was a good school but still the average percentage was quite low, as it is in all my country). Now there are several factors responsible for it I believe. First being all the subjects in English (except our native tongue and Islamic Studies and Pakistan-Studies in most of the schools). Most of the lower-class or middle-class students come from a back-ground where they don't get to hear English...and so even if English is taught in school, they don't excel at it well and it's difficult for them to get scientific concepts for them because they are in English.

Next can be parents-pressure. Parents making them study too much that they don't want to concentrate upon what they are reading or even if they want to, they can't (as it was with my friend whose father wanted her to become a doctor badly).

Other can be as you mention video-games, computer and television. Too much excess of everything is bad.

In fact there are many factors that count and one should balance up all things. Even I have to balance my lack of sleep but sleeping for quite a lot of time on weekends. :p

[schadenfreude]

Interesting thought, SleepyWitch. I guess that to blame kids for being unmotivated to succeed in school is to assume that high achievement in school will lead to a happy and successful life. Which is not completely true, of course. Nor is it completely false.
I used to think that the kids who dropped out of school before they completed their secondary education were minimising their opportunities in life and etc. I guess that was the sentiment I was inculcated with, considering that I had 'family network' of my parents, aunts, uncles and other distant relatives (I'm not sure that everyone was actually related) who would conduct their discussion of the Year 12 High Achievers at the end of every year.
But then, I thought about it when I was stressing over some foolish exams, and it seemed that I had some silly, arrogant notion that we cannot be happy without being educated. I had heard the whole "happiness is not determined by success, education or money" speech before, but I think that deep down, a part of me still believed that if I did not study hard enough, I would ruin my life. Or maybe I just wanted to believe it because it gave me a sense of security- almost like I could choose to be happy.
Maybe lazy pupils are the wise denizens of our social hierarchy. They choose to entertain themselves rather than study, and in doing so, aren't they making a more judicious decision than the students who wallow in anxiety and study their brains out for every test? Is it foolish to value enjoyment more than education?
I guess it all depends on what you believe the right way of living is- whether we should live to know and understand things or live to find some sense of enjoyment in life.

[SleepyWitch]

I had heard the whole "happiness is not determined by success, education or money" speech before, but I think that deep down, a part of me still believed that if I did not study hard enough, I would ruin my life. Or maybe I just wanted to believe it because it gave me a sense of security- almost like I could choose to be happy.


yep, you've got a point there. but then as you said, you've got a huge family network to support you.
when you look at the bottom of the social ladder, i.e. at the poorest people, young people often don't have any friends at all and they have lots of arguments with their parents over poor marks. so they've got no prospects of a good job/high wage, no friends (because poor people tend to look down on each other rather than stick together + nowadays kids who have problems with their parents find less support with other kids), no support from their parents. So how happy are they? I think it's different if you come from a supportive family and fairly well-educated background and then decide to drop out of the rat race than when you really never had a chance in the first place..... but this is slightly off-topic :D

[Pensive]

Interesting thought, SleepyWitch. I guess that to blame kids for being unmotivated to succeed in school is to assume that high achievement in school will lead to a happy and successful life. Which is not completely true, of course. Nor is it completely false.
I used to think that the kids who dropped out of school before they completed their secondary education were minimising their opportunities in life and etc. I guess that was the sentiment I was inculcated with, considering that I had 'family network' of my parents, aunts, uncles and other distant relatives (I'm not sure that everyone was actually related) who would conduct their discussion of the Year 12 High Achievers at the end of every year.
But then, I thought about it when I was stressing over some foolish exams, and it seemed that I had some silly, arrogant notion that we cannot be happy without being educated. I had heard the whole "happiness is not determined by success, education or money" speech before, but I think that deep down, a part of me still believed that if I did not study hard enough, I would ruin my life. Or maybe I just wanted to believe it because it gave me a sense of security- almost like I could choose to be happy.
Maybe lazy pupils are the wise denizens of our social hierarchy. They choose to entertain themselves rather than study, and in doing so, aren't they making a more judicious decision than the students who wallow in anxiety and study their brains out for every test? Is it foolish to value enjoyment more than education?
I guess it all depends on what you believe the right way of living is- whether we should live to know and understand things or live to find some sense of enjoyment in life.

It might be different in the West but I believe that to have a more easy life generally (for others may go for spirtual happiness though it not usually proves to be very good when you don't have bread on your table to eat) but here we don't have any unemployment funds. Still, education for girls after highschool or even before that in many middle-class families is not very important, for they can be house-wives here but a man who has to support all the family, has to even support his parents when they get old (it's usually considered the responsibility of males here) has to get the damned money for all this from somewhere. We don't have our government taking any responsibility for our aged citizens. The medical treatment in most of the cases is also not free. Education in many cases is not free, especially in a school where a teacher really teaches, though it's true many pupils from public schools turn out to become doctors or engineers or have money if they are good students.

So most of the basic living here depends on one's education...if your parents are not rich. Without education, you can always get money by stealing stuff or getting married to some rich woman (which you would hardly get if you yourself are not rich) but otherwise there is a huge problem. Even educated people don't get the jobs related to the subjects they have graduated in....a person one of my friend knows having done MSC (Masters in Physics) solds newspaper and there are many such cases like this, but still with education, there are lesser chances of no money.

[TheFifthElement]

Go Sleepy!!! No hiding the challenging subjects from you!

I don't think you can blame the kids, no. It's interesting that what has been suggested (in the other thread) is that often disadvantaged/immigrant populations do better in school because they work harder, but more well off children are lazier and don't work as hard. I think that these are sweeping generalisations which do a disservice to all children who are working hard, regardless of their background, but it does raise an interesting point which is...

...motivation

I think a lot of the signs are that there has to be some important motivation for kids to work hard at school; for the disadvantaged/immigrant children this may be to pull themselves out of poverty, give them a better future; or perhaps simply to prove themselves in a society which seems not to accept them. In UK we are seeing a growth in the gap in attainment between girls and boys, with girls excelling - again there is motivation for the girls to prove themselves in a society which is still heavily male dominated in the top jobs.

For those kids from a wealthier background this motivation can only be added by the parents showing a little self-restraint, and some good moral fibre. What's the point slugging your guts out at school if you get the PS3 anyway? If you give your child everything they want what ensues is boredom, discontentment and lazyness.

I think you can expect children to be self motivated, but then if you hand them everything they ever want on a platter, how can they learn the necessity of self motivation? You can't force children to want to learn, but then it is the role of the parents to guide their children sufficiently well to learn the value of things, and the benefits of working hard.

Again, I think it's important not to make sweeping generalisations about the aptitude or attitude of children based on their social background. Schools and parents should always look at the individual to try and establish the reasons why children aren't working hard, or aren't attaining in school. The problem is that the schools (certainly in this country) are just interested in getting their pupils from A-B with the least difficulty possible, whilst achieving the maximum SATs scores not by learning, but by exam coaching. They haven't got time to deal with kids like they're individuals and thus get the best out of each student. Most kids are now in families where both parents are working, so the parents haven't got time/are too exhausted to really focus on their kids. It's easier to give them the PS3.

So I guess I'm saying that the whole of society is at fault. We need, on the whole, to move away from this commercial, consumerist society, which isn't making anyone any happier, and think smaller, and start respecting intellectual attainment more - like how about we start treating the scientists, and the peacemakers, and the inventors, and the historians, and the sociologists etc etc, like they're the celebrities (because they actually make a difference in our lives) instead of some bimbo who's appeared on Big Brother for 10 weeks talking rubbish, and gets her t*ts out afterwards and does nothing to benefit society whatsoever. What kind of message does that send to our kids?

[SleepyWitch]

I think you can expect children to be self motivated, but then if you hand them everything they ever want on a platter, how can they learn the necessity of self motivation? You can't force children to want to learn, but then it is the role of the parents to guide their children sufficiently well to learn the value of things, and the benefits of working hard.

Again, I think it's important not to make sweeping generalisations about the aptitude or attitude of children based on their social background. Schools and parents should always look at the individual to try and establish the reasons why children aren't working hard, or aren't attaining in school. The problem is that the schools (certainly in this country) are just interested in getting their pupils from A-B with the least difficulty possible, whilst achieving the maximum SATs scores not by learning, but by exam coaching. They haven't got time to deal with kids like they're individuals and thus get the best out of each student.
you mean like learning CGSE cards by heart? a friend of mine taught German for a year in England as a foreign language assistant and I visited his school once.
teacher (armed with GCSE cards): "wie heisst du?" (what's your name)
pupil: "Ich heisse Laura."
teacher: "Was machst du gerne in deiner Freizeit" (what do you like to do in your free time).
pupil: "Ich gehe gerne Einkaufen." (I like shopping).
teacher (deviating from GCSE card): "Was noch?" (what else).
pupil: "er?"
teacher (in English): What else do you like?
pupil: "er, just shopping."

what's really sad is that the teacher's German was excellent and he could have taught them so much more, but they are expected to drill their pupils like that and not do any real language teaching.

in Germany, we don't have this kind of rote learning for exams (yet).. well we don't have those silly cards, but we learn lots of rubbish anyway... but the school system has lots of other shortcomings, like this

Schools and parents should always look at the individual to try and establish the reasons why children aren't working hard, or aren't attaining in school.

while there are many lazy teachers, there have been lots of progressive teacher movements over the past 40 years. since the 60s, teachers have come up with ideas for better integration of children with learning difficulties or how to make teaching more individual in general. but it's the state governments that are conservative/re-actionary/short sighted and expect the teachers to teach more and more useless facts without any consideration for pupils' needs.

[TheFifthElement]

while there are many lazy teachers, there have been lots of progressive teacher movements over the past 40 years. since the 60s, teachers have come up with ideas for better integration of children with learning difficulties or how to make teaching more individual in general. but it's the state governments that are conservative/re-actionary/short sighted and expect the teachers to teach more and more useless facts without any consideration for pupils' needs.

Absolutely agree Sleepy - I don't think the teachers are to blame, government interferance is a problem too, but governments interfere because there is social pressure to do so, so the cycle goes
schools failing pupils - parents complain - media gets involved - clamour on government to improve schooling - government interferes - schools fail.... ad infinitum.

I'll give you an example of what happened recently at my son's school.

My son is currently learning long addition. He brought home some homework that looked like this :

52 + 45 = ?
25 + 16 = ?

he was having some trouble with it, so my husband showed him how to do the math this way :

52
+45


25
+16

adding the columns together starting at the right. My son found it much easier to do the work this way. The next day my husband explained to the teacher what he had done. The teacher explained that, in her experience, this is a better way to teach the children, but that she is not allowed to teach them this method until he is 9 (2 years away). Until then they must learn this way :

52 + 45 =

in linear form as this is the government prescribed method of teaching, and the columnal method is considered more advanced. This seems bonkers to me. Why not give the teachers both tools, and let them work with the children to decide which method works best for each child?

My son struggles at school, not because he isn't bright but because he is too advanced for his class. He doesn't work hard because the work he is given to do is too boring and not a challenge. In school he stagnates. There is nothing the school can do for him because the government dictates this lack of flexibility.

[SleepyWitch]

My son is currently learning long addition. He brought home some homework that looked like this :

52 + 45 = ?
25 + 16 = ?

he was having some trouble with it, so my husband showed him how to do the math this way :

52
+45


25
+16

adding the columns together starting at the right. My son found it much easier to do the work this way. The next day my husband explained to the teacher what he had done. The teacher explained that, in her experience, this is a better way to teach the children, but that she is not allowed to teach them this method until he is 9 (2 years away). Until then they must learn this way :

52 + 45 =

in linear form as this is the government prescribed method of teaching, and the columnal method is considered more advanced. This seems bonkers to me.
seems bonkers? it is bonkers. I don't know the first thing about teaching maths, but I'm pretty sure we learned to do it the colums way early on when I was in primary school... I've just tried to add up 52+45 without using colums, but I think I do colums in my head anyway, whether I note them down or not. my little brain cell does either: 2+5=7, 50+40=90, 90+7=97 or the other way round (starting with 50-40).
are there any studies about what happens in our brain/mind when we do sums? can it actually be done in linear form without doing colums in your head or learning it by heart?

[TheFifthElement]

seems bonkers? it is bonkers. I don't know the first thing about teaching maths, but I'm pretty sure we learned to do it the colums way early on when I was in primary school... I've just tried to add up 52+45 without using colums, but I think I do colums in my head anyway, whether I note them down or not. my little brain cell does either: 2+5=7, 50+40=90, 90+7=97 or the other way round (starting with 50-40).
are there any studies about what happens in our brain/mind when we do sums? can it actually be done in linear form without doing colums in your head or learning it by heart?

I don't know - it seems natural to me to work in columns but I was taught that way so perhaps I am influenced by that. However, my son certainly found it much, much easier to work in columns.

I had a long chat with my son about school. In it he said 'I like art because you can think about what you want to draw, I like science because you get to do experiments and there's not so much writing and you get to try different things, I like RE (religious education) because you learn fascinating facts about other cultures, I don't like maths because its too easy, I don't like writing because all you do is copy off the board.'. Somehow the school manage to take all that desire to learn and turn it into boredom. I don't blame the school - he would be no better off anywhere else - but the system does seem to be set up just to process children through the years until they're someone else's problem.

[Scheherazade]

The aim of the linear form is to teach the students the idea behind the addition (it is a good idea to look at it not merely as a form of 'getting the answer right' but as a useful tool for their future studies in maths):

52 + 45 = ? In this addition, the students are expected to make use of their knowledge of 'place values'. First, they look at what are in the units columns (2 and 5) and add them together (7). Then, they move onto the tens columns (5 and 4) together (9) and get the answer:

52 + 45 = 97

When students master these concepts, they improve their skills in mental arithmetics as well.

PS: 'Place values' concept is very useful throughout their maths studies so it is very recommendable that they feel comfortable with this concept earlier on.

[Shalot]

here are some of my thoughts on that other thread that got closed (so I put it in my blog) but now there's a new thread and I am going to add them here:


Someone in that thread attributed declining reading rates to a pack mentality and I think there is some truth to that. Most kids don't do their homework or want to study and they don't. I remember learning how to study with my friends - for a short while it was really "cool" to have homework done and get the 98% on the test. My parents weren't much help in the homework department - thank goodness for my friends who were. The teachers read books to us in class (books with several chapters) starting in the second grade. We were encouraged to read for sure, but there was a social aspect to the reading I participated in as a child, and I don't think I would have read as much had it not been for my peers.

Children are impressionable to a point, but kids are more interested in forming friendships and are more willing to do what their friends are doing. Teachers can guide a child who has interest but it's very challenging to engage a child in a subject he has no interest in. A teacher can stand in front of a classroom and show students techniques for solving a math problem or writing an essay, but it's up to the student to go home and practice math problems and form the ideas for an essay and then construct and perfect those sentences.

And it might help if teachers were paid more. I did meet a teacher onece who gave a damn and I don't know what personal interest that could have served. She had some sense of duty though and she was up in my business and calling my parents and I made the grades in her class.

Just to add - my interest in learning reading was socially motivated (for a while, early on) and I think that made all the difference in the world.

[Dori]

It seems to me, being a junior in high school, that kids (or should I say young adults?) are just plain lazy. Of course, I live in the country and some people work on farms. I admire their work ethic as far as manual labor goes, but I don't understand why they can't transfer that to the classroom.

Oh, and during every class, I see 2-3 people (usually girls) with their cell phones out texting their BFFs or whatever they call them. Then they complain about how stupid (forgive me for being so blunt) they are.

I remember last year in Global Studies, my teacher gave us a twenty minute lecture on how we have it so easy (from what I've heard, we really do). Nobody listened to her because she was a democrat among republicans (and if that wasn't enough, she was an atheist among Christians). I didn't like her, but I respected her for that little diatribe of hers. I actually thought it was quite humorous :D. This teacher also put her all into her career, that is, she spends 3-5 hours after school everyday.