As the end of the school year approaches, many seniors across the country have experienced a lack of motivation and effort, commonly known as senioritis, which leads them to question “Is trying in school even worth it anymore?” After college applications and plans for life after high school are made, seniors across the country have been known to ignore work and skip school, hence the infamous “Senior Skip Day”.
As defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, senioritis is a lack of motivation and effort by school seniors as evidenced by tardiness, absences and lower grades. After over a decade of redundant school years, seniors struggle to make it through the final stretch of high school.
After 12 years of structured lectures and test-taking, students are bound to experience intense burnout by the end of high school. Would changing the ways lessons are structured or how students interact with each other prevent burnout? Would it create more engaged students? Would changing the way schools teach help students who dread the school year or environment?
Progressive Learning is a way some of Upper Arlington’s elementary schools are trying to get students more engaged. Does the future of education lie in the hands of an evolved style of teaching?
ACADEMIC BURNOUT
As society’s knowledge of school’s physiological effects grow, teaching styles expand to accommodate more students’ needs and prevent burnout. Burnout is described by the National Library of Medicine as feeling exhausted and empty. According to the University of Georgia, common issues students face from burnout are exhaustion, lack of motivation and decreasing inspiration and interest. UAHS is ranked No. 21 out of more than 820 Ohio high schools on US News due to its standard of high academic achievement within the student body. Unfortunately for students, the intense academic landscape of the high school is both necessary for keeping up with the school’s standards and excellent at fostering burnout and complete over exhaustion in students.
Due to this environment, maintaining student motivation in school is a constant struggle of teachers and students alike. An article by The University of Georgia called, “How to Combat Academic Burnout” listed several ways students can bounce back from school-related burnout.
“1. making time for enjoyable activities, 2. getting plenty of physical exercise, 3. getting outside, 4. making time for social activities and 5. setting reasonable goals,” UGA said.
Many of these are achieved through UAHS’s programs dedicated to activities both in and out of school. On top of clubs and sports, there are also student-led learning programs inside of the high school. The International Baccalaureate (IB) program and the many different electives the high school offers are both school-wide incentives to create a more adaptive environment for students to learn and grow.
Once inside the classroom, teachers also have their own ways of keeping students engaged. UAHS history teacher Joe Endres spoke on his own experience with student motivation.
“It’s a dance. There’s no one single thing that we do… Most teachers are trying to figure out what is gonna get kids engaged, and we all do it differently,” he said.
Keeping students engaged can be more or less challenging based on the course topic and difficulty level. The history classes Endres teaches have the benefit of being on topics good for student engagement, which happens to cause the style of teaching he sticks to to be very traditional.
“As a history teacher, I am very lecture-centered,” he said.
Styles of teaching are always being revamped and argued. Some, like Endres, would argue a structured teaching style is more beneficial to students, while others would argue students should lead their own learning. Published philosophy author Ben Shehadi shared his belief on learning as a mutual experience rather than a head-on experience. With the students taking action in the classroom and mimicking real life to prepare them for their futures.
“It’s important, especially at the high school age, because you’re in your adolescence, to give you freedom and autonomy. In real life, it’s not just passing tests – you really have to take ownership of your life,” Shehadi said.
That to say, there are still benefits to a traditional classroom. Particularly for classes with high concentrations of information being taught everyday. Endres emphasized that high-level classes, such as AP, require a rigor that doesn’t leave much room for experimentation.
“It’s an AP class, so it has to be a little bit more rigorous in terms of whether they’ve got to write more essays and do more homework,” he said.
AP history classes like the ones Endres teaches can be mentally draining on students. With heavy college-level workloads going to students who already have six other classes and lives to keep up with outside of school, students can begin to drown. Endres took this into account, stating that as a teacher it’s important to have a good balance between learning and entertaining.
“The first thing that we consider is… what we have to teach and then how do we get students to the best viability, enjoy and engage in learning that material,” he said.
UAHS also goes about creating this balance outside the classroom. The many different art and music topics offered, coupled with electives students can choose based on their personal interests, can help curb burnout. Shehadi was also on board with this idea.
“It’s about the strategic expenditure of energy. So anything that you do, it’s a balancing act,” he said.
One of the things that can create balance, he argued, was art.
“Art is something that is beautiful, and beauty is something that makes life worth living,” Shehadi said.
The careful balance of keeping school engaging and manageable while still teaching and preparing students for their futures is constantly on the mind of Upper Arlington Schools.
THE PROGRESSIVE PROGRAM
In Upper Arlington, the preparation for a child’s futures in both schools later in life and the workforce starts very early, as soon as they enter the district. When children start going to school in Upper Arlington, their parents have the choice between a traditional learning path or a progressive one at Barrington Elementary or Wickliffe Progressive Elementary. While Progressive Learning is overall very similar to the traditional pathway, it strives to give kids more control over what they learn and encourages them to build the critical thinking skills they need to go into the real world. Wickliffe first-grade teacher Sarah Giles explained the goals and purpose of Progressive Learning.
“We have a lot of focus on helping children become independent in their learning, become independent in making decisions and work [and] learn how to work with others in a group setting,” Giles said. “We spend a lot of time focusing on children’s social development, their emotional development and we really like to create things in a way that follows children’s choice and interest.”
At Wickliffe, the entire school is progressive, and Giles said that their main objective is to prepare the students for life by building independence from an early age instead of having everything be led by the teacher.
“We work to build independence and children being motivated to just do the right thing. [For example] police [will] send a couple of kids to go work in the library [by themselves], or instead of walking up the front of the line as the teacher, I let them start to walk and [I’m] following behind,” she said.
While Wickliffe is the only school that is fully progressive, Barrington has two programs, one that is progressive and one that takes the traditional pathway. Third and fourth grade Progressive Teacher Katherine Benton described some of the ways that the Barrington Progressive Program stands out.
One of the ways they learn is through service learning projects where they make items and then sell them to the rest of the kids at Barrington and then donate the profits to charity.
“In [the Progressive Program] we’re really theme based. [For example,] when we learn about economics, we do a lot of hands-on projects, such as [the] Kids for Critters service project or [the] Buckeye Bonanza. When we run out of a product, the kids get to learn what scarcity is,” Benton said.
Another way that Giles and other progressive teachers are able to incorporate their students’ ideas is by allowing them to discuss their ideas and work together to help the adults plan their class parties.
“All of the kids in my class signed up to be on a party planning committee, and then they sit with a parent volunteer to plan like they’re representative of the class, to plan what ideas they would like to do when we have our parties,” Giles said.
Giles explained that along with the idea of committee her students also learn how to participate in a democracy by allowing them to vote on many issues that directly affect them in the classroom. She said that she tries to teach her students the importance of them of being able to move with their day after something that they feel passionate about lose the vote.
“We do a lot of voting on things, just brainstorming the classes idea and then voting, which is also a way of honoring child choice. [This teaches the kids] about how that process works and how your vote might not win and how to move forward from there,” Giles said.
Another part of Progressive Learning is incorporating all areas of learning together to show the kids how everything they are learning is connected and can be applied to life outside of the classroom.
Benton explained how the Progressive Program incorporates all subjects of learning, even things that are not considered traditional subjects such as music, instead of just having the students read about each learning topic separately.
“Sometimes we’ll include art and music and everything. Not just opening up a textbook to a page and reading about one particular topic. It’s really weaving it all together and giving the kids input,” Benton said.
She explained that schools are changing their learning styles to adapt to the increase in technology. Benton focuses on the importance of teaching kids critical thinking skills, how to work as a team and problem-solving skills and not just knowing facts since that is no longer very necessary.
“We are moving away from just teaching kids facts because with AI and phones, they have access to all that information at their fingertips. What we know we have to teach them is how to problem-solve and adapt to the changing world around them,” Benton said.
She elaborated on why teaching these skills to students, especially at a young age, is crucial for their future.
“We need to make students who can think outside the box and go to a job and have new things to offer rather than just going with the flow. You know, people who are strong at communicating, strong speakers and people who are comfortable, eloquent and confident,” Benton said.
When it comes to keeping elementary schoolers engaged throughout the long school day, teachers must continue to come up with creative way entertain them. Giles shares her strategies to keep learners engaged.
“I try to integrate different components that maybe we would not have integrated before. So we might work with our occupational therapist, and we have things in each neighborhood, like wall push-ups, or trac[ing] the butterfly while you take a deep breath,” Giles shared.
While there is not much data supporting the differences between kids who learned traditionally and kids who learned in a progressive environment, Giles shared the positive effects of Progressive Learning that she sees every day.
“I really see kids that are kind, kids that stand up for each other, kids that are able to maintain friendships over time despite maybe having other interests. I think that’s really tricky, to be honest, for most people, until you’re an adult, because we gravitate toward people who share this similar interest as us,” Giles said.
Benton saw similar qualities in her students that will hopefully grow with them into their future. She hopes that these were learned qualities that the program they were put in showed them from an early age.
“The district has adopted the profile of an engaged learner. It includes kids being skilled communicators, being able to collaborate with anyone, having empathy and being able to solve problems, which I think all of my students implement,” Benton said.
Section three (IB Diploma): The IB Program
In addition to more alternative learning at the elementary level, there are multiple different pathways a student can take when they reach high school. Among these options is the IB Diploma Program, which has a long history, starting all the way back in the 1960s.
UA’s IB coordinator Cynthia Ballheim explained that the main focus of the IB program is to develop a vast array of skills and knowledge as well as interpersonal skills.
“It’s a liberal arts system with the belief that in high school, it’s too early for people to specialize and just choose what they like. [The class options offered are] like a buffet, and [when] you have all desserts, you should try everything,” Ballheim said.
Ballheim described the program’s long history and how it eventually made its way to UA.
“It was devised, defined and actually brought to life by a panel of experts in the late 1960s. So it was [designed by] businessmen and ambassadors, [since] they would move from country to country, they wanted to make sure that their own sons’ and daughters’ [education] would be recognized by every single university in the world. And that’s what we have with the IB program,” Ballheim said.
Ballheim believed that in order to allow students to reach their full potential and find what they are passionate about, they should explore a multitude of courses before making a decision to specialize in a specific area.
“We don’t want to duplicate courses that we already offer if possible because there’s room for all kinds of courses,” Ballheim said.
While there a multitude of courses that students can take the AP or IB version of, IB also offers courses that are unique and are offered by the IB board. Ballheim elaborated that while the IB courses that have AP duplicates are very unique in their own ways, some courses have such in-depth material that there can not be an AP version of them.
“And we have, for example, in science and IB Sports, Exercise and Health Science, which isn’t duplicated anywhere else in the school. So we try to have ones that are interesting and that will draw students interest,” Ballheim.
The students involved in the IB program learn through writing in depth on the subject matter of the classes they are taking. IB diploma candidate Masao Tamiya explained that he wanted to take the IB program because of the information that he retains.
“I chose IB for its lack of emphasis on memorization and more on actual learning development. AP seemed like a lot of memorizing facts and using them in multiple choice tests where IB makes you write and actually learn the content,” Tamiya said.
Ballheim described that the purpose behind the creation of the IB diploma was to show the students the best way they learn. She thought that the traditional pathways expect the students to be able to figure it out by themselves but IB makes sure to teach them the best way for them to acquire knowledge.
“There is no multiple choice ever, and it always is, teaching students how to learn. They don’t assume you know how when you come in,” Ballheim said.
To give students the opportunity to succeed in life Ballheim thought that they should explore courses that have some multiple choice but mostly classes that make sure they understand the content fully.
“We always suggest that students have both kinds of courses [AP and IB] on their resume, because it shows that you can learn in different ways. But [I feel like] multiple choice is really like multiple guesses. Truly, in IB, [the information you learn] you use to get something else,” Ballheim said.
Conclusion:
Passion has been driven out of schools recently. Kids enter with creative imaginations and minds that could come up with a solution to any problem that comes their way, and leave with an inactive imagination and some facts that they will forget by the start of the next year. Lately teachers and administrators have noticed this problem and created a multitude of solutions such as the IB program. In the IB program, students can choose what interests them the most and are able to fully develop an understanding of the subject. In addition to that, there is the Progressive Program where students get to connect everything they have learned into projects.
With the focus on expanding the student’s thinking they are able to actually have a better understanding instead of just memorizing facts that they will, inevitably, just use technology to look up and then forget. When entered in the alternative pathways, it has been found that the students will grow up to have more developed empathy and group working skills that will carry with them for the rest of their life.
With having a more student-led and passion driven classroom environment, students have been found to grow a greater appreciation for school. This, in turn, leads to them feeling less dread and burnout when it comes to learning and working hard. Burnout can never be fully removed from the school environment and there will always be students who dread learning, however, attempting to allow students to follow their passion and enjoy school the best they can is one of the best ways to decrease the effects of burnout.
“There has to be something to make your life fun and that’s what school should be,” Ballheim said.
