Do You Believe Every Student Wants to Learn?

When I was teaching middle school in Milwaukee, we saw a variety of kids who appeared apathetic to learning – but we know kids want to learn.

They want to be successful in the classroom. Pao (2014) states this: "Children naturally love to learn but might not like to be taught in certain ways. Teachers’ improper ways of teaching might make a child shut down their willingness to learn, which is called not-learning.

Not-learning does not refer to an incapability to learn, but is rather a choice a child intentionally or unintentionally makes to resist learning.”

If you want kids to want to learn, you have to give them positive experiences in the classroom. We often heard the phrase from our principal: "Once you taste chocolate cake, you want more – and once students taste the success of learning, they want to keep learning.” 

Most teachers would agree with Flanders (2019), who found that “Learners learn better when they are actively engaged.”

We do this well in elementary classes – they love to learn, have fun, and enjoy it. Still, somewhere in the transition to middle school, we instill a sit-and-listen mentality, and then we throw them into college prep in high school, rarely engaging them in an active learning process.

We need to reflect on ourselves to figure out how to shift a student’s attitude.

First, you need to assess:

1. Are my students enjoying learning?

   1. Write down the names of the ones that do not. Do this for two reasons

      1. You identify who is most likely slipping through the cracks in your classroom.

      2. You will have this guidepost to see if their attitudes are, in fact, changing as your lessons and units become more creative and engaging. 

   2. Look for patterns among those students, lessons, and assignments and see if there are any commonalities.

2. If students dread class or specific assignments or do not enjoy learning, we must ask ourselves why? 

   • Are they bored?

   • They are performing low, so the tasks seem too complicated?

   • Do they believe they aren’t good learners? 

   • Are they simply apathetic? 

That said, some kids fear looking stupid in front of their peers or even adults, especially in middle and high school. They believe it’s better to appear apathetic and not fail embarrassingly than to try and appear unintelligent.

3)  So, do you believe that all your students want to learn and want to perform well? If the answer is no, a heart-shift may need attention first. Stay tuned for a blog assessing our beliefs about all students’ ability to learn. 

Once we do some self-reflection, what do we do with what we learn? 

Think about when you are forced to go to professional development. You dread it; you prep with coffee and secretly wish there was wine in your cup because let’s be real, it will be a long few hours of sitting and listening. 

Now contrast that with a workshop where you are actively engaged, talking with other educators, working on tangible tasks, and using your foreknowledge to create new systems, plans, or ideas to better your classroom.

You learn new skills and look forward to trying the material and concepts you’ve just learned.  

Similarly, our kids are social learners; they want to interact, build and use their foreknowledge, strengths, and skills to create something and expand their knowledge. They want something to show for their hard work in your class that is more than an A on a paper. 

Can you adjust your lesson so that students interact and create something using previous knowledge and strengths to build new knowledge that is engaging and meaningful? Try it for a week, two weeks, maybe an entire unit, and see if their attitudes shift over creativity in your classroom. 

Below is an example of a document similar to what I used to evaluate my classroom. 

Rhonda, our student,  is apathetic and completely disengaged during class and is convinced that nothing we are doing will help her in real life. Using this document to assess Rhonda’s attitude toward learning and track her attitude shift (or lack of it) was essential to determine if the active learning was or can be effective.

Notice that Rhonda’s attitude shifted slightly in only eight school days. Her shift could have been for various reasons, but I assume it was partly due to the real-life connection, as that was her biggest complaint, which seems to be most students' complaints.

Also, the shift could have been since the activities were purposeful and broken up into short segments. Shorter segments help to keep the focus. 

One challenge we still have with Rhonda is competing for her attention for her phone, but isn’t that the challenge we have as adults as well? 

Another example.

Luke was one of the hardest to keep focused and the student who could pull everyone off task - I’m sure you have one or four of those in your class. One of the vital discoveries I had during this process was that he is a verbal learner.

I realized this when he scored a 3/3 on his exit ticket, but was talking the entire work time, and I assumed he would have scored a 0/3. He could also explain the terms and definitions in his own words with no problem.  

Luke needs to talk, but sometimes I need him to listen - we all have students like this in our class. I tried giving him some independent work for a brief period of time (five minutes), gave him three questions to answer, and told him he would be teaching it to his small group and would be responsible for their ability to retain it.

He did so well in his presentation with them that he made it fun to listen to.

I think it’s safe to say, Luke, while he drives me crazy when I’m trying to teach, will probably become a teacher, public speaker, or comedian. Luke continues to struggle due to his refusal to complete work if it’s a topic he’s not interested in. 

I have considered doing a life-skill mini-lesson on "Doing the Hard Things We Hate". When we moved to a hands-on workshop model, he performed much better in my class. 

Feel free to use the template to begin the shift in your classroom Attitude Shifter Document.

The most crucial detail to hold on to is that I knew both Rhonda and Luke wanted to learn, but they needed an engaging way to learn.

As I shifted my lesson structure, students became more involved in the class and were having fun with friends while learning. 

We have to believe all of our students can and want to learn. 

I'm Katie Trowbridge, and I am the president and CEO of Curiosity 2 Create, a nonprofit organization offering professional development and coaching for educators and administrators.

We use the CREATE Method, an ESSA Level 4 backed method that reduces chronic absenteeism, improves student engagement, and increases student academic performance using our CREATE Method model. Schedule a call here to learn more about how Curiosity 2 Create and the CREATE Method can help you and your school today.

Works Cited:

Flanders, K. D. (2019). Teachers and Creativity in the Classroom [A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty

of the Morgridge College of Education]. University of Denver.

Gao, P. (2014) I love to learn, but I hate to be Taught. Journal of Education and Training Studies. Volume

2, no. 3. http://jets.redfame.com.