In the age of information, it isn’t difficult for students to access learning on their own and explore content that they are interested in. This may be one of the factors that is contributing to a decline in attendance rates. If they can find the information themselves, or that school is offering them nothing of value, then why would they come every day? 

For clarity, I am not suggesting that all students are self-motivated to learn or that they can replace the expertise of a skilled educator. I am only suggesting that in their mind, this may be a thought they are entertaining. In the age of information there is a widely held belief that anything we need to know, we can find out online. There is probably even a handy Video tutorial to go along with it. With rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence, this is even easier to access since students can enter their questions and get an answer back in seconds. Knowledge has never been more accessible to the average person. 

For years we have had students ask the question ‘why do we need to know this,’ or ‘why do we need school?’ To go along with this some students will point to celebrities or people in their lives that did not complete school but are still considered to be successful. While these are typically exceptions rather than the rule, this is the mindset from which some students are working from. As such, these questions are getting harder and harder to answer in a manner that students will accept. 

This scenario brings to mind shopping malls or brick and mortar stores. It is difficult to understand why these even exist anymore with the proliferation of online shopping. You can order nearly anything you can think of with the click of a button or tap of a screen. It is quick, it is easy and it is convenient. We have made this so easy with apps, free shipping, and more conveniences that it begs the question of why anyone would go into a store, let alone a shopping mall to buy anything?

The major reason people still frequent these stores is for the experience of shopping. They go for the atmosphere, the immediacy, the curated collections and being able to try things out or on before buying. Similarly, for some they enjoy the feeling of walking around a bookstore and the feeling of turning the page rather than scrolling on a screen. These stores and malls offer us something that the online experience does not.

I think schools should take a lesson from this. To re-engage our students we need to focus on the experience of school. For a long time I think we have undervalued this or we have simply accepted it as a given without putting enough attention and intentionality towards what that experience is. Traditionally, the experience of school was that students came to obtain knowledge and some sort of certification (eg, a High School Diploma). The expectations were primarily a sit and listen with little focus on engagement or individualization. To be clear, this is not to say these things weren’t happening, but overall the system was mostly based on this model.

As a starting point to considering the experience of school, it is worth asking the question ‘if students could choose what school they go to, why would they choose our school?’ If you are a classroom teacher you may want to zoom in a little more and ask, “If my students didn’t have to be in my class, what am I doing to make them want to stay?” or “How am I connecting what they are learning to their lives?” 

Shifting our lessons so they do not compete with the breadth and depth of knowledge available, but rather, augment and help students learn to navigate it is a role that school’s are well positioned to do. Similar to how you can shop for clothes online but you can’t necessarily get the internet to tell you what looks good on you (yet!), schools can help students learn what to do with that information. Being able to critically evaluate what they find online, increase their literacy and numeracy to be able to put information in context, etc is what we can offer. 

Similarly, we also can capitalize on the parts that cannot be replicated online: which can include social-emotional learning, self-regulation, building empathy and much more. A large part of school is learning how to deal with other people, something that definitely cannot be replicated by the Internet, or despite claims to the contrary, artificial intelligence.

We can all bemoan how kids should be, and lament that they are not compliant with how we want to teach or romanticize the ‘good old days’ of teaching (spoiler: they probably weren’t as good as you think they were in all aspects), but we have to accept that however things should be, we need to deal with things as they are. This is not to say that we cannot work for more positive change, this blog is rooted in a foundational belief that positive change is needed and achievable.

However, wanting our students to simply ‘get with the program’ is a losing strategy and the repercussions of that loss are students who are disengaged and drop out, who grow into adults who lack all the skills that school seeks to provide.To continue the analogy from above, stores have adapted to having online services because their customers demanded it. Schools need to adapt to our customers (students) as well if we are to provide them with the education that we aspire to provide. The reason why brick and mortar stores still exist is because they have tapped into providing a positive experience for their customers. We as educators must figure out how to tap into the experience of school and learning if we hope to stay relevant.