“Where do I sit?”
A question every student asks themselves at one point or another. It’s the choice that defines your status, the power you hold and the involvement you have. Choose wisely. Every educational institution I have ever seen preaches the importance of connection among students. However, after speaking to both students and staff it’s apparent that that’s not always the case. They sit in the same place, talk to the same group and are scared of answering questions. The solidarity once held in schools has become divided, with little turnout to school events. We are left to wonder, is school culture dead?
“For it to be valuable for students, I think it has to come from students,” Garret Peters, Glenwood Springs High School dean of culture, said of student involvement in the school community.
Peters discussed how students have become less and less involved in school in the past few years.
Engagement is down, “but a lot of times the students that don’t want to engage in community are also not as interested in engaging in academics,” he said. This engagement, or lack thereof, extends into the classroom as “the students that do raise their hands and ask questions generally outperform those that don’t,” Peters said.
We understand that participation is down, but the reasoning as to why is more unclear. The obvious answer every adult can offer is social media, which I agree with; the youth face a loneliness crisis on an unprecedented level. Having a world of information at your fingertips changes the way one perceives the world, degrading basic human connection.
Coupled with the rise in artificial intelligence, there is a distortion of reality that we have yet to mitigate. As communication between people shifts to a more and more digital format, we see many harmful impacts on adolescents’ development, reducing attention spans and warping self-perception.
Social media has created so many acutely modern issues for students. However, we have also seen a rise in social media usage to develop school culture. School administrators have begun creating accounts on websites such as Instagram and TikTok in order to promote school events and attendance. These accounts feature everything from student council activities to “tea time” with principals, all in an attempt to relate to the youth and stir up excitement over upcoming events.
To some extent, this has worked, replacing the school newspapers of old with a new digitised version, offering students a chance to learn about school events in a largely accessible way.
This seems like the perfect solution to the problem of involvement, and yet we still see a decline. Part of the problem with the media of a modern age is the culture online. Being a “try-hard” has become a negative stereotype; many students have been ridiculed over effort, effectively creating a hostile environment for any student seen as hardworking.
This hostility feeds into classroom culture, where there can be low engagement rates and an overall difficulty in getting students to speak up. Even advanced placement courses have issues with student engagement, and teachers running discussion-based classrooms tend to find a small handful of students willing to speak up and share. This is found across schools and seems to be one of the hardest issues for educators to tackle.
“You get what you put into it,” Peters said.
Teachers watch as the people who try to put whatever they can into school continually succeed, while the ones who treat education with apathy tend to do worse overall.
“If you don’t care about the world around you, the people that do are going to make decisions,” Peters said.
For many students, school is not about learning but rather ticking off graduation requirements. As apathy grows, school culture declines, only widening the gap between students and learning. Often teachers who care the most inspire students to do the same, highlighting personal growth over academics. This is where students flourish. Feeling a human connection between student and educator helps to create a more welcoming environment for growth.
“Where do I sit?”
In a divided school system, choosing one’s seat has never been so daunting. But maybe it’s time to try sitting with someone new.