If most students are like me, there are certain classes you dread going to each day. Some classes seem, whatever the subject matter, to drag on in a repetitive slump.
Teachers and parents tend to dismiss such student boredom and disinterest as merely a symptom of ‘being a teenager’ or a lack of motivation on the part of the student. To a certain degree, this is true.
I admittedly have some very ‘teenager’ moments and can, at times, be lacking in motivation, but students aren’t entirely at fault. The classroom as well as the student has become less and less involved.
There are some inherent limitations in every classroom: the behavior of the students, the resources available, and the time given. Certainly, these limitations can restrict classroom activity, but they aren’t excuses for a lack of innovation.
In elementary school, plenty of hands-on activities were made available to the students as fun ways to learn. For every unit, there were several simulations and competitions that aimed at making students want to learn.
In middle school, these activities became scarcer, but field trips and fun projects were still a part of the student curriculum.
In high school, hands-on activities have become rarities in otherwise monotonous days.
Obviously, education styles must change as students get older, but learning styles don’t change so drastically. Students still learn best when they get to experience the curriculum, not just hear about it in lectures.
Earlier this year, I went on the Close-Up trip to Washington D.C. with a group of CHS students. During the week-long trip, we saw monuments, visited different political organizations, heard debates, and met our political representatives.
Not only was Close-Up a blast for everyone involved, but I had never felt more curious about politics. The trip made me realize there was a vast world of information and debate that was extremely pertinent to me and that I was completely oblivious to.
The interactive learning experience I had with the Close-Up trip was more educational and thought-provoking than any of my previous history classes had been.
Though some of my classes tended to be uninvolved, the principles of biomedical science class I took this year was one of the more interesting classes I’ve had in my time at CHS.
Not only did the class participate in several unique experiments and studies, we also took two field trips that further enhanced our learning.
During a unit in which we studied the human body systems and certain diseases associated with them, the class took a trip to the morgue at Washington University.
Such a trip may sound somewhat gruesome, but that field trip made me certain I wanted a career in medicine and sparked a desire to become more involved in that field.
During the second field trip we took, the class participated in patient simulations. We tracked the vitals of ‘patients’ and attempted to treat them as if we were their nurses.
Activities such as these made biomedical science a class I looked forward to everyday. Unfortunately, this class is unique in its curriculum and activities at CHS.
It’s true that taking the time to create interactive learning experiences is much more difficult than organizing regular classes, especially given the short time and relative size of classes, but I believe that it’s worth the effort.
Students may have matured to the point where they can sit still without fidgeting and color in between the lines, but hands-on activities can still teach and inspire students more than lectures any day.