How to rip motivation out of a student

Here’s something I don’t understand. 

Why’re we forcing students to study things they’re not passionate about … and expect them to learn? 

Since when does retention and enthusiasm arise from ‘cause you have to’ and mandatory assignments that result in a definitive grade? 

Do students even know WHY they’re studying?

Students aren’t motivated, because the theory doesn’t RELATE to them - they don’t know the purpose of this content, so of course they’ll lose interest!

Ask me to memorise the history of cricket and I’ll throw an internal tantrum (… but comply anyway because I’ve been brought up that way :’)) 

But the thing is, we’re naturally passionate. We like to learn, be curious and grow. We wilfully seek out new information, and even obsess over it - because we can relate to it, it means something to us. 

If there’s no emotional connection, then the content we ‘learn’ goes in one eyeball and out our armpit. 

So what I’m saying is, we need students to know WHY the content is important, WHY it can be interesting, HOW it can apply to their lives. 

I’m not going to learn the history of cricket unless if I like cricket, or I play it, and it adds to my emotional connection with it (which un/fortunately is not the case). 

The education system has flaws. Plenty of them. 

I’ll be sure to create future posts (and youtube vids), to really pick apart the other issues I see. 

Until then,

Jo x