I had a nice talk with 21 of my future students today. When I asked them how their summers are going, their answers were all depressingly the same.
"Boring"
"I haven't done anything"
"Stupid"
I followed up to that question and their answers with, "Do you wish that you were back in school?"
All of their answers rang of a similar apathetic tone.
"Nah"
"I dunno"
"Not really"
I find it interesting that our students do not know what to do without structure. I kind of feel sad for them.
When I was a kid, summers meant that we were out from the time we woke up until the streetlights came on. There was nothing boring about summer because we created our fun. We invented games, played 1000 versions of tag, and didn't care about the weather. We didn't ask our parents to entertain us. We had no cell phones. We had neighborhood friends.
As I talked to this group of 7th and 8th graders, I felt compelled to teach them how to have fun. I knew, all too well, that my definition of fun when I was their age is not something that they would accept as fun.
We need to do something! We are creating listless Zombies who are losing touch with creativity and the ability to have fun for more than a few minutes at a time.
Be Mindful.
Peace.
Mark Levine
#Mindfulliteracy
@LevineWrites
They don't know how to use their imaginations like we did as children. It is truly sad.
ReplyDeleteI want to show them all home movies of when I was a kid.
DeleteI hear this from kids, too. However, I also walk through the forest and around the lake where many of our students find the same kind of summer fun you and I did when we were young. I wonder if they just don't know how to find the story in the fun they are having. Maybe it doesn't sound flashy enough to chase each other with sticks, ride bikes down the big hill, and slosh around the edge of the lake--they don't see it as Instagram-worthy.
ReplyDelete