Kids of the 21st Century by Kyra

Kids of the 21st Century by Kyra - January 2015 Scholarship Essay

What a lot of teachers have come to learn throughout the years is that the students that they teach, especially teens, actually are easily distracted by social media; I, as a senior in high school, can confirm this. Almost every student in America has a deep need to always know what a celebrity is doing, what their favorite artists’ new singles are, or who is the new hot celebrity couple. With all of this consuming teenagers’ lives, it is quite hard for students to focus in school and not be caught in the net of media, especially with social networks like Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, etc. But why can’t we do both?

I propose that schools everywhere have a way to incorporate things going on ,as far as music artists, actors, and athletes, to their lessons in school. Now before students get happy and carried away, the lesson still has to happen and they would still need to learn, but instead of having “Jimmy picking 5 apples….”, it should be “Johnny Depp picking 5 costumes for his next role….”. Just small changes like names or objects, could get a student from extremely bored in school to interested to learn more. Of course the main problem here would be the fact that not everyone like the same people and it could get into an off task conversation between students, but those conversations could get teachers thinking about what to put into the next topic. All that needs to be done is for school faculty to listen to students when it comes to what type of people in the media they like. As for my school, I personally would be deeply intrigued if every lesson was about One Direction, 5 Seconds of Summer, Ed Sheeran, Fifth Harmony, and Bruno Mars. Also I, along with many of my peers use this method to have a way to remember things. If I am trying to remember the formula for photosynthesis, I would substitute in the names of all 5 members of One Direction and I would never need to think twice when people ask me that question. I related something I know to something I don't know in order to remember it. Overall I believe that this strategy, if used properly, can be one of the most effective ways of teaching in schools everywhere.