It was my first teaching job and the assignment was a kindergarten classroom of 28 children, no assistant, and a bathroom at the end of a long hallway. Full of optimism, energy, and the experience of working with children for 12 years, I set out to create the most engaging environment possible.
For my first science lesson, I made bee costumes of felt, created table-sized flowers with cornmeal as pollen and allowed the children to run around the room pollinating. Sounds fun, right? Well, imagine my surprise when only about 20 of the little ones participated. The others either sat lethargically or ran around oblivious to the task at hand. I couldn’t believe it. Why didn’t these kids love my carefully crafted, benchmark aligned, painfully prepared lesson? Frankly, it hurt my feelings. What was going on?
Apathy, a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern is commonplace in classrooms and society in general. Why are so many children exhibiting apathy and what can educators do about it? Adverse Childhood Experiences and chronic stress often result in behavioral symptoms including apathy. While creative teaching helps (get out your bee costumes), there are other interventions that can be put in place to help a child heal.
Understand how ACE’s, chronic stress, and trauma affect students’ learning and behavior. This knowledge changes your lens of the student and encourages you to think about meeting children’s needs rather than punishing their behavior.
Provide a safe, consistent environment and get feedback from the students on how the environment makes them feel.
Teach and practice expectations and norms and give continuous feedback.
Give choices whenever possible to increase students’ feelings of control.
Teach students about their emotions and how to regulate them, practicing daily.
Integrate play and fun into your lessons. Positive experiences create new brain pathways!
Observe closely for apathy and get additional support, if needed, for students exhibiting this behavior.
Most of all, don’t beat yourself up if some of your students don’t seem excited about your lessons. Apathy is just another warning signal that this student needs a little more understanding, a safe and encouraging environment, and possibly more interventions to develop the hope, excitement and passion that is the joy of childhood.
