Fires Chapter 6

Chapter 6 focuses on what happens when your kids are unmotivated to learn and bored with the subject. One quote that I found that I feel sums what it feels like for kids who are unmotivated and bored with what their learning was on page 100. Hilary said, “I felt like school was keeping me from learning.” On the other hand, some student don’t necessarily need to be motivated to know school is important, one student said “If you want to stay in your realm, you can’t blame the man if you don’t get ahead. The opportunities are there (101).” A lot of kids also make assumptions about what the goal of school is. On page 103, in their opinion of why they have to attend school a student said, “So what they tell you will become part of what you’re thinking.”

I found all of these quotes pretty surprising, but interesting at the same time. The first quote from page 100 just makes me feel a bit disappointed because as teachers we are suppose to be teaching kids, and teaching them stuff that they’re interested in. If they’re not interested in it, it’s your job to make it interesting for them. The quote on 101 is kind of on the other side of the spectrum from the first, but equally interesting. I feel that I have always been the kind of student that didn’t necessarily need motivation to know that school was important, so I can relate to that. However, I think it is still important to make sure that you're making the content interesting for those students as well. The last quote, on page 103, really shocked me. To an extent I believe we want to influence how students think about learning and possibly life, but this student almost makes it sound like school is trying to brainwash students.