Dear Editor of The Apple Leaf,

Student engagement is huge topic in teaching circles right now, and Mr. Joya and I want to take advantage of its popularity to share our feelings.

Brian Higgins, English teacher

School should not be about fun. I know I might not be making too many people happy right now, but it had to be said. Somewhere in the recent past we lost the real reason for school. Aren’t we supposed to be teaching and guiding our students on the path to becoming responsible, well-rounded thinkers? Yes, I believe we are. And many of the biggest learning moments of my life came from obstacles I had to deal with. Nowadays, we teachers are supposed to teach and make class fun so that students want to come back every day. Where’s the challenge in that? And how is that even realistic? Who comes home from their job every evening saying, “Oh boy! I sure do love my job. I don’t even know what I would do without it?” Nobody, that’s who. And if we really want to make it realistic, we should assign hours of homework per class period. That’s how it was when I was in high school and it seemed to work out just fine. I’m a productive member of society and I’m involved in the community. Clearly, focusing solely on academics worked for me back then and it’ll work for students now. That’s how I know that making school fun is the wrong step. If we do make school about fun, aren’t we just instilling a false hope in students that they can eventually do what they want to do and earn a living at the same time? We don’t have room in our schools to provide students with unreal expectations and we don’t have room in our school for fun at the expense of learning.

Rudy Joya, Math teacher and Rocket clown

School should be more fun. Srsly. Fun helps students connect to their learning. OMG MY CLASS IS BIGGEDY-BOMB! First I have students throw paper at each other. Then after they’ve sufficiently settled down, I give them my entry task. I’ve found that by posing a completely hypothetical, videogame-related problem, students are more able to complete it. Sometimes I throw the names of other teachers into problems. And candy. We are always throwing candy around the classroom. Students love it! They’re always trying to answer the question when there is candy involved. Or points. I don’t even have a reason for the points I give, I’m just all, “Nice job! 8,000 points for your team.” Most teachers have around 150 students, but I have so many students hanging around my room all the time that I’m probably up in the mid-hundreds. It’s fantastic. It really gives me a great feeling when I see a student in the hallway at 7:50 a.m. and they’re already excited for class. If we don’t find a way to make school fun, students won’t have much of a reason to do their best. Instead, they’ll have plenty of reasons to quit, drop out, or do the bare minimum. Society has changed a lot over the last century, and even in the last decade we’ve seen some staggering changes. How much sense does it make to force my children to do things the same way I did them? That’s not making the world better for my kids; that’s keeping it the same. Engaging students is the start to larger changes, because engaged students care about what is going on. Engaged students become engaged parents and adults.