A student just told me I am supposed to make learning fun. This is what high school students expect today. I love learning. I think learning is fun. Discovering something new, pushing yourself to accomplish something. That is fun. That is not what my student means. They want games and activities. They would love it if I could make math a fun run game to learn algebra. Don’t get me wrong, I do try. I create basketball games with problems, we have team races, and we have class competitions, but today we have to sit in our seats and learn something new so it’s soooo boring. I understand and do believe that in certain settings teacher must be more creative to engage kids in learning. Sometimes we have to preform magic tricks to get them engaged. Is this making them college ready though? What professor will play a game to get students to participate? Professors lecture, have class discussions, and students learn. College is fun because you are interested in what you are learning. I feel like I am setting them up for failure today. If they expect every lesson to be fun and do not motivate themselves to learn, how will they succeed in college? The districts expectations is for multiple response strategies every 3-5 minutes, students working 90% of the time, and limited teacher talk. I can think of 3 college classes that meet that criteria. The expectation that I am not doing my job because they are not having “fun” is ridiculous and frustrating. I worked hard planning the lesson they have today. So not only am I annoyed they are complaining about the lesson, but I am annoyed because I feel like I am failing them.
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