I often find myself saying that exact phrase just about every day in class. Maybe it's me being an adult, but I really don't remember my teachers constantly telling us to listen up. I seem to remember that when an adult, particularly a teacher spoke, we listened. Maybe not intently, but we listened more than students do today.
I often am dumbfounded by this simple human task that today's students sorely lack. So what is causing this phenomenon to happen? Is it that teachers are simply not engaging students on their level? I tend to believe this is not the issue, since it seems that the students who lack listening skills are the same ones day in and day out.
Perhaps it is parenting that is the cause of the issue. Again, I have a hard time with this as I am a parent of two young girls and I can see my oldest one already having trouble listening. Then again, that could just be a toddler thing.
Since this seems to be a more recent issue, I try to examine what has changed over the last 20 years. I would put my money on the over stimulation of kids these days. If we list all of the things that are available to engage kids, we find that many were not around back then (video games, iPods, Facebook, YouTube, instant messaging, cell phones and on and on).
Maybe kids just don't know how to process and take all of this information in. Nobody is really teaching them how to deal with the constant barrage of media. Maybe the reason they have problems listening is that there is just too much going on and something has to give. In a student's eyes, what would they tune out first? My bet is the least interesting which very well could be school.
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