Editorial: Let's Take the Boredom out of the Classroom

by: Julie H.

Teachers wonder why we fall asleep in class or don’t focus and talk. It’s because they talk in a monotone voice or make us watch boring videos or they just talk and talk and talk. They also give us boring worksheets and make us read out of the books by ourselves in complete silence all the time! I ask this: Is there anyway we can make activities fun, but still educational? Where we can learn and still be under control while having fun?

Teachers think that since we talk we aren’t paying attention. Well that is true in some cases, but other cases aren’t. When we talk it means we are bored. Well, maybe we wouldn’t talk if they kept our attention by adding something we don’t expect. Have something out of the ordinary, activities that we like, without teaching ourselves by reading out of a book. Usually when we read out of a book, we don’t comprehend it, and we don’t pay attention to what we are doing. We just try to finish the worksheet so we can have time to do something else. This is why we don’t do well on the unit tests. We just don’t comprehend it all!

Teachers sometimes think that having us read the material helps us. That doesn’t always help. We usually decide to talk and act like we are reading, because we don’t want to read it, or we started to and don’t understand it. Doing worksheets does help. It gives us something to study off of, but when we go over it we don’t check it. Sometimes we don’t even finish or do it. We would complete the worksheet if it had something fun on it or no boring questions. We could make drawings or talk with a partner and write what we learned. Or have a discussion.

Students can also give ideas on what we could do. We could talk to our teachers and give them suggestions on what we would want to do. Teachers don’t know how we learn. That’s why they try so many different ways of learning. Some examples are worksheets, movies, reading out of the book, partner work, or something else. We lose interest in those fast. Instead, what could we do?

Well, there are many things other than that. Ideas that you have may be different from someone else. It all depends on how you learn and what your interests are. If you want something new that you think everyone would like, you should talk to your teacher. They could use your ideas and maybe the class would be more fun, and test scores would be better. Instead of D’s, and F’s, you could get C’s or more B’s and A’s. Take some action, and talk to your teacher. These activities could help your grade. 