Student dropout rates at Lawrence High School have been increasing in the last few years and nobody knows why. Teachers have been meeting and meeting and so have parents and nothing can be concluded as to why this is happening. How come these smart educated adults don’t get their thinking caps on and ask the students?

I have experienced this dropout problem first hand and understand some of these students’ thoughts. Most of them feel like they have no reason to be in school because the teachers are wasting their time. We do the same stupid lesson plans everyday that doesn’t actually teach us anything new, it just goes in one ear and out the other because we do not enjoy the learning strategies. All of the “old school” ways of studying from a textbook, filling out a worksheet, or creating a power point used to work, but now they are not efficient ways of learning in this modern world. Modern students want hands-on activities. They want to know why they are doing what they are doing and how it is actually going to help them or influence them in the future, or it is just not worth learning and wasting their time. From this standpoint students want to take courses that are based on a major. Teachers tell us when we are young that we do not yet know what we want to be when we grow up and will change our minds a million times between now and when we graduate but that is also something from the past. People of the new generations tend to figure out what they like to do and base what they want to do with their future off of that thought. The students feel that we are taught over and over again the same stuff every year just in a different way. Teachers tend to “waste our time” in the students opinion and try to make our lives boring, that is why kids choose to just not be involved. This may be true but if it is something where students feel like they are actually going to need this material in the future, or this may apply to what I want to be when I grow up then they are going to put in more effort and try to be successful and do the job right.

The world today is evolving and the baby boomers and generation X is not getting the picture. The old ways worked with the thought process of the old generations who were molded into thinking certain ways were the only way to do things. They rely on being told what to do and how to do something or they don’t think that they know how. The new generations are realizing there are many ways to do stuff and teaching yourself how to do it is the biggest advantage to this generation. Technology is evolving the world and cannot be ignored. As soon as the school board and this suppose to be “amazing” president realize that school is living in the past, I honestly believe that the word dropout will soon be out of the students vocabulary and education will become more important to these individuals.