Bored High School Students More Likely to Drop-Out

High school students in the United States say they are bored in class and many have considered dropping out, according to a new survey.

In the report conducted by Indiana University, 75 percent of the 81,000 students who participated said they were bored in class because the material wasn't interesting and 31 percent said they had no interaction with their teacher.

"I think what is happening is students are not being involved in interactive ways in the teaching and learning," Ethan Yazzie-Mintz, project director of the university's Center for Evaluation Policy, said in an interview.

Instead of providing lectures, Yazzie-Mintz said teachers should consider other methods of teaching such as discussion and debate and group projects.

Yazzie-Mintz said teaching style, rather than class size, is largely responsible for this problem.


SOURCE:
news.Yahoo.com

This is not news to me.
I've said it before, having a day full of boring classes is not good
for learning.

Apart from what this article has suggested, we also need to introduce
more fun and interesting classes, like art, PE, computer and other
such things.

For instance, my school happens to offer several art classes, different
computer classes and many different PE classes, and because of this
alot of the people you would'nt think would be getting good grades are.
Also, many of the History teachers teach in ways that involve everyone,
through debate, group projects and games, and because of this more
people are at least getting C's.


Comments, Opinions?

I think that High School should be more structured like College courses... More in depth study of material. As far as developing more extracurricular activities and such, actually,I think that's part of the problem with our education system now. We have all of these extracurricular things going on and have removed the basics of reading,writing and arithmatic. Twenty percent of the population is functionally illiterate.



[edit on 28-2-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

[edit on 28-2-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

I left school at 15 ,because I'd rather be out drinking and riding motorbikes......I turned out ok ..hey IORI

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
We have all of these extracurricular things going on and have removed the basics of reading,writing and arithmatic. Twenty percent of the population is functionally illiterate.

Not really, extracuriculars can only be placed in slots that one does not have a required class.

The reading and writing thing, well High School is not where that is supposed to be taught, you need to go back further to fix that problem.


It is sad though.

Originally posted by kuhl
I left school at 15 ,because I'd rather be out drinking and riding motorbikes......I turned out ok ..hey IORI

Yeah, but you would have only had to go one more year anyhow though.

High school should be more career based training that would actually go for a persons "qualifications" for a job, then kids would have a reason to actually be in school.

I think it's been normal at least since the 1950's that high school is boring.
Anything establishment oriented is always "boring" to a teenager.
Teenagers know everything......or didn't you guys know this?

I graduated in 1981 and from what I remember high school was pretty boring back then. I hated it, but graduated. We all survive it. It's not like this is some new phenomena.

[edit on 28-2-2007 by rocknroll]

no surprise here, high school classes teach the most boring crap ever.

rocknroll, how's it going? I haven't seen you on for a while.

Originally posted by thehumbleone
rocknroll, how's it going? I haven't seen you on for a while.

I'm around. Not as much. Doing well.
Actually, I've gone back to college for some night classes. I'm learning how to publish websites.

Originally posted by rocknroll

Originally posted by thehumbleone
rocknroll, how's it going? I haven't seen you on for a while.

I'm around. Not as much. Doing well.
Actually, I've gone back to college for some night classes. I'm learning how to publish websites.

Cool, glad to see your still posting.

I'm hardly surprised. This reflects my high school experience quite accurately. I remember thinking many times, wondering wtf I was doing at high school. The only reasons I had at the time were that I knew I couldn't get a decent job or go to university without it, and the other reason was a girl I had a huge crush on at the time

Ideally, what I'd like to see happen in high school curriculums, are the following:

-More advanced academic courses for those who are willing and able to take them. My high school had beginners calculus, and that was about it, for this category
-More trades-type courses for those who do not want to pursue an academic career, but do want to learn and build or make or repair things. My high school had a few courses in this area, but they were pretty basic. Stuff like auto shop, woodworking, drafting that sort of thing, were what we had. I'm talking about adding things like electricians courses, computer repair, and the like.
-Better teachers. You would not believe some of the idiots I saw... or maybe you would. I recently spoke to a woman who runs a tutoring service, and she said that she has to hire science and engineering students, as well as education students, for her tutors, because the education students don't have enough science to do half the problems the kids are doing.

I remember when I took chemistry in high school, I had to get my friend to help me all through the organic chem stuff. It took a long time, but he finally pounded the stuff into my brain, and I ended up with something like 95% in the course, because I worked hard to learn it. My friend was lazy, quit going to class and doing homework, and even though he knew the stuff better than me (he taught it to me...) he failed the class because he missed so many exams and assignments. Marks don't reflect how smart you are, but to a degree they do reflect the effort you make. At least in chemistry, my friend was smarter than me, but I worked harder than he did, so I passed and he did not.

Dragons, all of your suggestions are certainly needed in the schools system.

[edit on 1-3-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

High School os completey worthless. And just because you may drop out doesnt mean you have to be a loser. One of friends from home dropped out as soon as he could, got his GED immediately and was in college before any of us graduated high school. He droppped out there too because he was offered a dream job of sorts. I havent heard from him in a few years but last I knew he was living in Manhattan, making 6 figures and happy as could be.

We're all free to drop out. We're all free to waste opportunity too. You can hurry up and get to study what you like or you can work for minimum wage and drink every night. Tech shool is a nice alternative to the government high schools. Its hard to indoctrinate plumbers and electricians. Not much politics in mechanical things.

I remember reading once in New Scientist or one of the likes that most dropouts are extremely intelligent and see school as a waste of time they'd rather not participate in. The more intelligent you are, the less likely you become to succeed in the modern world.

Originally posted by Charles Lee
The more intelligent you are, the less likely you become to succeed in the modern world.

I guess I have a different definition of "success" and "intelligent" in mind... You can only imagine the situation or perceived situation of the author that wrote such rot.

Yeah, high school is boring and if you didn't go through it with all your friends with you it'd be intolerably so. Being bored with something doesn't mean you're too smart for it, I've heard that garbage for so long.

I can't believe this was on the news though, "bored students more likely to drop-out." Well, duh. I can't believe somebody, probably us, paid to have this study conducted. It's like saying "hungry people more likely to eat food."

I was bored in high-school, but I had parents so the possibility of dropping out was nil. Heck, I had parents so the possibility of me dropping out of university was nil. I remember, the only initial reason I applied to university was that while in my senior year of high-school my parents said, "if you're not in college next fall, you've got to get a job." So I chose the path of least resistance, and luckily experienced in university things that gave me the motivation to kick ass and not just do things passively or succumb to boredom.

School is extremely boring for me though im only an 8th grader but it still sucks the only reason i do well in school is to carry on my family reputation i feel that my parents enjoy it when i strive for more when really all i wanna do is well less or basically what i want. i would like to see a major change in school where we can be more "hands on" and less "read chapter 17 and then take notes" as my stupid math teacher would say.
we should have a school system that is designed to fit the needs of: slackers, over acheivers and all in between i would enjoy that school

Originally posted by Charles Lee
I remember reading once in New Scientist or one of the likes that most dropouts are extremely intelligent and see school as a waste of time they'd rather not participate in. The more intelligent you are, the less likely you become to succeed in the modern world.

Charles, well, it is certainly argueable as to how successful someone like say, Albert Einstein, would have been in today's school environment. Hell, he struggled through school as it was. However, it certainly didn't diminish the fact that he had a grand mind on him. What you said probably has some merit.

Let's face it, the modern world isn't based on a person's intelligence. As a matter of fact, the intelligent in today's society are outcasts. The intelligent are actually the only ones who still pick up a book and reads. They are generally viewed as being "nerds," "weirdos," "geeks," and just about any other derogatory name you can think of...

[edit on 5-3-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

[edit on 5-3-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
...it is certainly argueable as to how successful someone like say, Albert Einstein, would have been in today's school environment. Hell, he struggled through school as it was.

School in Albert Einstein's time was many, many times more difficult than it is today. Even as a drop-out, Einstein was probably years ahead of our best college graduates in 2007.

Our best high school graduates today would undoubtedly flunk grammar school in the 1880s, and that's just a fact. I graduated from Southwest Texas State University with a BA in Journalism, and I later inherited a library of 19th Century grammar school books from my grandfather — as God is my witness, I don't believe I could've passed 1880s grammar school with my modern education.

What we call "education" today is a load of feely-touchy social engineering designed to transform normal humans into docile, non-competitive livestock.

— Doc Velocity

[edit on 3/5/2007 by Doc Velocity]

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
School in Albert Einstein's time was many, many times more difficult than it is today. Even as a drop-out, Einstein was probably years ahead of our best college graduates in 2007.

I think that schools taught better back then than they do now. However, considering alll of the information that children have to know nowadays, I don't think that it can be reasonably argued that it was harder. The older generation didn't have to keep up with the amount or speed of information that students of today do.

[edit on 5-3-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
However, considering alll of the information that children have to know nowadays, I don't think that it can be reasonably argued that it was harder. The older generation didn't have to keep up with the amount or speed of information that students of today do.

I think we should draw a distinction between knowing information and merely using information. In Einstein's early schooling, the focus of education was inward, prescribing elaborate thought experiments that helped establish patterns of problem-solving.

I can quote such a Victorian-era thought experiment from memory, I think:

A passenger train departs from Chicago, Illinois, en route to Green Bay, Wisconsin, with stops at Milwaukee and Appleton. Between Chicago and Milwaukee, the train attains a maximum speed of 50 miles per hour and reaches Milwaukee in 110 minutes. Between Milwaukee and Appleton, the train attains a maximum speed of 55 miles per hour and pulls into the Appleton depot in 115 minutes. On the last leg of its journey between Appleton and Green Bay, the train attains a maximum speed of 50 miles per hour and pulls into Green Bay in 42 minutes. QUESTION: If the train's driving wheels are each 9 feet 4 inches in circumference, how many full revolutions will a driving wheel turn during each leg of its total journey?

That question came from a grammar school math primer circa 1892. It was just one question of dozens at the end of a single chapter. This is the sort of stuff that a very young Einstein would've learned in grammar school. By the age of 12, he was studying Euclidean geometry and Calculus. He dropped out of school at age 16, by which time he was already sorting the details of travel at the speed of light.

My point is that the objective of "old school" education was working the brain into a problem-solving dynamo. This style of education is more critical to gathering and understanding knowledge than is simply using the information, as is the focus of education today. Yes, kids have much more information available at their fingertips today, but this doesn't mean they are developing problem-solving skills. I dare say even college graduates today are emerging with decidedly two-dimensional problem-solving skills that are nowhere near as complex as those that Albert Einstein juggled as an early teen.

— Doc Velocity

[edit on 3/5/2007 by Doc Velocity]