How do students feel about school?This question is essential to understand students’ attitudes towards learning, because if they have a positive attitude about learning, their motivation increases effort and their teaching will be facilitated, on the other hand, negative feelings are linked to the low quality of learning and the rejection of the school.
Several studies have reported alarming data on students’ rejection of school. Some research shows that between 28% and 35% of students don’t want to go to class. This data shows us the seriousness of the situation and the need to address this problem, as motivation is always fundamental in the learning process.
- It is even sadder and more disturbing if we assume that most of us.
- Including children.
- Have an innate motivation to acquire knowledge and self-realization.
- The school is an institution that.
- In principle.
- Would be designed to meet this need.
- In order to make this process rewarding.
- But it is not.
- Which leads us to the conclusion that there must be certain factors that negatively influence the perception of the school.
The central factor that largely explains the rejection of school students is school anxiety, when going to school causes a high level of stress in students, trends are triggered to avoid this environment, this occurs when the body gives more importance to the anxiety of the school. school than in the satisfaction you get with learning and self-realization supposedly achieved. Keep in mind that the negative and short-term aspects (such as school anxiety) are much stronger than long-term positive stimuli (such as self-realization on the way to school).
Now, why do students suffer from anxiety at school? to discuss this issue it is better to take a different perspective and take on the shoes of any child who goes to class, if we do this, we will immediately notice that it has a very long agenda, pressure for high performance, boring courses and little motivation.
School anxiety is one of the main causes of school rejection
As for the schedule, each child gets up every morning from Monday to Friday to be 6 to 8 hours at school, and every day, when they return home, they have to do a series of schoolwork that lasts another 2 or 4 hours. And if you want to pass the tests, you’ll have to spend more time studying and reviewing the subjects, say about an hour a day.
If we do the calculations, it will be between 50 and 65 hours a week, much more than a day of legal work. In addition, most parents spend the rest of the child’s time on extracurricular activities, which creates great anxiety due to lack of free time, which leads to a rejection of the school and everything it represents, because it is far from covering any of your interests, regardless of their knowledge. Free time is essential to meet the needs of other children, such as playing.
Our education system uses an evaluation system that generally provides reports in the form of grades or figures associated with academic performance, which sometimes results in a highly competitive system that values those who score high and penalizes those who don’t do so well.
In addition, there is a strong tendency to attribute failure or approval only to the student, when in reality it is the teacher’s responsibility that their students acquire the knowledge, so this responsibility increases the younger the students are.
This increases the tension among students, who are driven to get the best grades in the class and forget that the ultimate goal is to learn, assimilate knowledge, and acquire research tools and resources, as a result, students who don’t meet performance expectations are likely to feel anxious.
Imagine a school that, instead of pressuring students to pass tests, focuses on meeting their needs and scoring their strengths, it is easy to imagine that the anxiety generated by this factor would disappear, since they would not have high standards to meet. and you would no longer see the assessment as a threat.
This factor does not directly influence students’ anxiety, but indirectly encourages rejection of school. If the lessons aren’t exciting and interesting enough, the motivation to learn will be reduced. This means that with minimal anxiety, any intention to learn disappears.
Do you only need to go to a class to see that most come in the form of a master class, where the teacher teaches master classes that students must memorize, without having to question them?In fact, often reflection, in the face of repetition, is punished ?. Knowledge reaches the student in its most superficial version, and without joining other constructions or mental patterns, this type of learning is annoying and demotivating, because the difference is not much compared to other kinds of tasks, such as memorizing a list of meaningless numbers.
For students to be or remain motivated by learning, this new knowledge must be relevant to them and this is achieved through active learning that encourages the breakdown of their intuitive theories and gives them a new insight into their reality. If we want a quality education, We cannot have a system that generates so much anxiety in students, as we cannot force them to learn, self-realization should be the intrinsic motivation that drives them and feeds them the school.