This past week I asked high school aged kids a series of questions. I’ve been substitute teaching in a neighboring county high school very often nowadays. I was tired of being superficial and talking about petty stuff. I wanted to know their thoughts and opinions on certain subjects. I’m curious to know so I will have a better idea on how to specifically relate and challenge/encourage them.
My 1st question was “What is the overall mood, attitude, and atmosphere of this county and the people in it?”. I asked these questions in about 13 separate classes (the school has a period schedule) totaling about 250 different students.
For the most part, their responses were somewhat of the following: depressing, lazy, ignorant, boring, nosy, rude, impoverished, and the list goes on and on. There was an overwhelming amount of negativity.
I had only 2 students speak up and say something like “There’s still some good people here”. Those 2 students were a breath of fresh air for me.
The 2nd question I asked was “Why is it like this type of mood and atmosphere here?”.
They eventually spoke up saying something like the following: it’s always been like this, people are too much into drugs, people just don’t care, the teachers here don’t teach, and the negativity list goes on and on.
After reviewing what the overall mood/attitude was and the why for it, I asked my 3rd question. Now, this question absolutely dumbfounded the students. I laugh now when I think of the look on their faces.
The question I asked was “How could we “fix” these issues or better yet improve on the overall attitude and atmosphere in this school and county?”.
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