Objective:

Today I will discuss and write about why school is boring, so that I can understand student
opinion on school issues.
Text:
-Compiled student opinions on school
Introduction:
-Students interview each other with question examples and stems. Students use small
recorders to record interviews and write a reflection about attitudes toward school.
Potential Questions:
 Do you think school is fun?
 Why not?
 What’s your favorite subject in school? Least favorite?
 What would make school more fun?
-After interviews, students move around the room to three posters. The posters have the
titles “School is boring because…”, “School could be more fun if…” and “School is fun
because…” Students use a marker to add their ideas to the posters.

Collaborative Work
-Students will participate in a gallery walk to understand others’ attitudes about school.
-Five paragraphs are posted around the room and students are tasked with identifying the
main idea of each as well as detailing their own thoughts about the paragraph.

Paragraphs:
1
What do you think the teacher’s role should be in students’ lives?
I think the teacher’s role is to engage the student and find what makes the student interested
in the subject. It’s about finding passion, and I think this school does a really good job of
that—allowing you to really search out what you want to do and find your passion. They
don’t care if that’s in academics or art or sports. If you can’t find something that you’re
actually interested in, you’re going to be living a life of lack, just going by. It’s the same with
how I think the public-school system really fails with standardized testing. You’re just
learning to take a test. You’re not learning to actually be happy.

2
What do you feel is the purpose of education?
I think education is important, but it also depends. I don’t feel like you need to have an A+ in
whatever, calculus, to just be able to work a normal job and make above minimum wage or
anything. They teach you about all this stuff that happened hundreds of years ago, which, I
like history, but they don’t really teach you about how to go and get a job, how to live on your
own, pay this, pay that, when you actually have to do it. Or [they don’t] actually [prepare] you
for college and dealing with that.

3
That focus has led to a teach to the test mentality and tactics that have classrooms in five-
by-five rows, students sitting up straight, filling out worksheet after worksheet. This does, in
fact, produce higher test scores, but it has the unintended consequence of disconnecting
students from school and learning. Students may be able to score higher on tests, but we
need to question whether they are really learning anything.
The gender differences revealed in the study indicate that girls are coping better with this
approach. That may be due to greater maturity or a better tolerance for sitting for long
periods of time. You’ve never heard a 12-year-old boy say, Let’s play school, but girls play
school all the time.

4
Respect is an important issue for teachers, and teachers need to work harder to gain
students respect. Students surveyed only recorded 39% respect for their teachers. Since
respect is a two-way street, it’s not surprising that only 54% of students think their teachers
respect them back. A few of the saddest statistics for me to read were that only 48% of
students think their teachers care about them. Going even lower, only 45% of students think
teachers care if they are absent from school. Around the same percentage marker, only 49%
of students think teachers are approachable to talk with about a problem.

5
One of the most interesting results was that 90 percent of students reported that they want
good grades. For an educator, that's thrilling to hear. But only six percent of students want
good grades for the sake of learning. Many students are so concerned with grades, tests,
and college admissions that they've lost what's really important about school. When they're
not succeeding, they feel terrible about school.

Guiding Questions
-What is this paragraph mostly about?
-What sentence best shows the main idea?
-Do you agree with the main idea of this paragraph?
Independent Work
-Students free write about the day’s activities. They should free write about their feelings and
reactions to discussing the issues students have with school during class.