Lack of pupil interest

We often hear that children are disengaged at school. They're bored and don't see the point of what they are learning. Or the only point they see is to pass the test. I remember asking my teachers whether what we were learning would be in the exam, as if it wasn't why would I need/want to know it?

There has been lots written about student engagement and I'm sure I have only scraped the surface. One blog I found, Wright's room, Shelley references research that says that between 50-70% of children are not engaged at school, which surely translates as at least that many not reaching their full potential?

I find It interesting talking to people about this. Some feel it is the children's problem, the 'it wasn't like that in my day" crowd. But I have a feeling it was. On David Price's blog, he discusses how engagement is confused with compliance, and my hunch is that in years gone by we maybe just had more compliance. But quiet "well behaved" disengaged children are surely still under achieving. My first headteacher used to say it was funny how teachers were judged by how long they could get children to sit quietly on the carpet for, as this had little to do with their learning. The 'well-behaved' class may just be a class of children who have perfected the 'art of sleeping with their eyes open.' 

In the Early Years, we work hard to follow the children's interests, creating interesting and challenging new experiences within this context, valuing their own ideas and supporting their explorations and investigations. It has always seemed crazy to me that as the children get older and more able to understand what they need to learn we reduce their freedom in how they do it. 

Again on Shelley Wright's blog she defines engagement as "a genuine disposition for self-directed, deep learning, fostered from an early age and continues life long." During my time as an Early Years teacher I was involved in the Effective Early Learning study, which looked at child involvement and adult engagement as ways of assessing the quality of a setting. Through having the time to actually watch the children I was privileged enough to see these very young children independently exhibiting those dispositions. Surely it is our job to continue to nurture these rather than squash them.

 A further study mentioned by Shelley seems to indicate some level of squashing, as Covington & Dray (2001) found that the longer a child is in school the less academically competent they feel. This reminds me of John Holt, he felt that children are amazing self motivated learners from infancy and that when they get to school, the very place where that should enhance this, they discover 'learning' is something they are not good at, don't enjoy or want to do anymore. Here is a link to School is bad for children an article he wrote in 1969

I have worked with some amazing and creative teachers who worked very hard to make the learning more engaging for their class. So much energy went on making the learning entertaining because fundamentally the children weren't interested in what they were being taught. I really believe we can tackle this problem by allowing the children to lead their learning, choose their context, and I think this is a matter of trust. Sadly we just don't trust children to make good choices but I think we are wrong...