Nowadays many children have trouble paying attention in class or concentrating on their school work. Why is this happening? How can this problem be solved?
Why do children find it hard to focus in class and school work
The amount of syllabus has increased tremendously that stipulates learning about more and more topics, leaving little time for brainstorming, clarifying the doubts and eventually maroon students on the plight
The objectives of teaching have changed, from explaining the concepts and assessing the abilities of students to just delivering the content and letting learners struggle on their own
Objectives of teaching have changed, it is no more a passion but just another profession.
Bigger class sizes that have a mix of all abilities - from slow learners to fast learners, creating distraction
Continuous focus on studies and no free time or extracurricular activities to let students relax, causing distraction because of inertia
At home, engagement with technology is taking a toll on studies, especially the internet and social media
Lack of parental attention, with both spouses working or one professionally engaged and the other socially active is also a cause of the problem
Solutions
Easing up the burden of of curriculum
Integration of extracurricular activities in the formal routine
Segregation of students as per their learning abilities could help
Smaller class sizes
Parents must also play a role in this: devote some time to their wards
Home assignments should encourage engagement with books rather than with the internet
Young learners are found lacking in concentration at school and while negotiating tasks given in the class as a part of homework. This can be attributed to various causes, but it is possible to find remedies for this.
The most prominent reason for lack of focus during classroom sessions is the ever expanding syllabus, making it necessary for both the faculty and pupils to cover a myriad of topics within predefined deadlines. Consequently, brainstorming and detailed discussions have become a thing of the past, and students are today left on their own to comprehend the content and prepare themselves for examinations, causing disenchantment in the process.
To add to the woes, the current practice of encouraging youngsters to search for information for school work on the internet is exacerbating the problems. Whenever one browses online resources, they tend to go astray and start engaging with other activities that eventually makes it hard for them to bring their focus back. To corroborate, a study carried out by an eminent educationist Professor Harmeet Singh revealed that most parents complained about their wards deviating from their main task of doing home assignments to playing games, watching videos, using social media and so on.
There is a need to alter the approach to let learners concentrate back on their academic pursuits. Formal curriculum should be rationalized and bi-furcated into different parts to ease the burden. It would be quite prudent to let students choose the content to be studied. Moreover, engagement with books instead of the internet should be prioritized for home assignments.
Overall, the stretched syllabus and linking of online resources with homework are the root cause for disillusionment among young learners, but streamlining the list of topics and promoting books can help solve this issue.
