Teachers are always asking us how to get students more involved, increase event turnout, and how to get their students enthusiastic about school spirit. The truth is, teens just don’t care, they are too focussed on their own lives, drama, coming of age, and on top of it all, their academic goals. Most students would rather be somewhere else when they’re at school and consider it something they have to do instead of something they want to do.
We’re here to tell you that the reason students aren’t participating is because they don’t care, and they don’t care because they don’t feel like it’s their choice to attend class, so of course they’re not going to participate in extracurricular activities when they barely want to do the mandatory ones. So how do we make students care and spark their interest?
We have one answer with three steps.
- Provide students more autonomy and freedom so that they can feel attending school every day is their choice.
- Create a more inclusive and fun academic environment so students actually enjoy coming to school every day.
- Incentivise them to join committees and clubs with the premise that it will facilitate their post-secondary applications.
How do we know these steps work? Universities and colleges have amazing turnout to events with so little incentive to attend. This is because students choose to attend class, enjoy spending time on campus, and are working towards building their resume. Now we’re not saying to give students full control over their schedule, but with the right tactics these steps can easily be implemented in your high school to create a better environment for students and get that participation spike you’ve been looking for.
So let’s try and make students care this year by making school somewhere they actually want to be. This way they’ll attend more than just the mandatory events.
Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for more information like this all the time!