Does your child hate school? Yes, me too, and I am a teacher. What can you do about it?

Dreaming of the future.

I will never forget the day in grade 6, when I was daydreaming and looking out the window and my teacher threw a piece of chalk at me and told me to get out of the class.  I was a well-behaved, quiet, kid.  So, what happened?  Why did he throw chalk at me and yell at me to go into the hall?  Perhaps, he had taken my daydreaming personally.  Maybe, he was having a bad day.  Maybe, I stared out the window every day.  Probably.  I waited out in the hall after class for him to come and talk to me.  I assumed he would want to.  He didn’t.  It was time to go home, so I did.  That was the end of it. 

I hated school.  I would have rather been playing outside in the field that I was staring at that day.  High school was even worse.  Trigonometry?  While I understand that math is important in this world, the two of us were never friends.  Geometry at least I could relate to.  By the way, forty years after graduating from high school, I find physics absolutely fascinating.  Back then?  I just wanted to hang out with my friends, and no math and I are still not friends. 

When I graduated from high school, any time I was near a school, I literally cringed.  LITERALLY!  I was so glad that was all over, or was it?  I thought so, until the day came when I decided to work with kids and go back to school FOR ANOTHER TEN YEARS!  Yes, that is right.  If my younger self had known that, I would have ran away. 

Then, after I became a teacher, what happened? I spent many more years working where? In schools, the place that I had hated as a child! Now, I have a confession.  Even as an adult, every September and every time I walk into a school, a part of me still cringes. Yes!!  My childhood memories run deep.  Even after going to the other side, teacher instead of student, my nature still rebels!

Structure and routine, while I know they are necessary, are things my free-spirited nature does not like.  I love nature and being outside enjoying it is my nature.  Spending much of my childhood inside a classroom was the last thing I wanted as a child.  Getting up early, sitting at a desk most of the day, then doing homework when I got home? Didn’t I just spend all day doing schoolwork?  Then I had more to do when I got home??? Now, as a teacher, I understand the importance of homework; however, as a child not so much.

You get the idea.  Becoming a teacher wasn’t my dream.  In fact, I thought teachers were people who made me do work I didn’t want to do.  Why would I want to become one of them? Ha!  I did become one of them, and spent my time trying to make learning fun, as it hadn’t been for me, making it practical and using objects and stories that kids could relate to. 

My point of telling you all this is that even if your child/teenager hates school and you are ready to give up on your child ever having any kind of meaningful future, don’t let today cloud your opinion.  Your child may be completely unmotivated to learn, or even delayed in development like I was (see my other posts), but there is hope.  Look at my story. 

I wish my grade 6 teacher could have seen what I became, a teacher like him.  I am sure he would have cried with joy that day when he kicked me out of class, frustrated that I wouldn’t pay attention and learn something.  I did learn something, that there is hope for any child who doesn’t like school, right now.  Learning occurs throughout a lifetime, not just in childhood.  

There is hope for your child, too. 

Deborah Ann Minke, M.A., B.Ed., OCT, CH-C

Energize and Rise LLC

https://www.energizeandrise.com

(I write my own blogs :)