During the start of classes, students seem to be very excited about learning.  Even parents feel the excitement. Both are excited of the new school year buying new school supplies, uniforms, shoes, and other school materials. This happens in public and private schools, as well as those who are homeschooled.

After all the excitement has died down, educational doldrums begin. But there are effective ways to manage or stop this problem. There are two worth noting.

1. Special Projects

When school has been going on for a few or couple of months, series of studying can begin to become boring. Chapter tests begin to take hold of students to become tiring and boring. What you can do is to break the cycle by providing students a special project to complete.  You can give them a project where they can study and research independently. These special projects should be adapted to the age, abilities, and interests of your student. This is an opportunity also to allow your students to develop autonomous learning.

2. Vary Your Schedules

It is true that many students benefit from regular schedules, especially the younger ones, putting some variations once in a while can also break the idleness. You can prepare activities to accommodate various interests of the students and involve them in the activity. It will help lessen the boredom and students will find something to get curious about every school day.

Of course, you can be as creative in finding things your students while enjoy as you are the one who knows them more.

Amazingly, one of the best ways to manage the educational doldrums is to gear the schoolwork to the student’s needs rather than trying to mold every student to the same schedule.  It takes some imagination and active interaction to help fight this problem and help students retain their excitement and interest in the school.

By: Charito R. Balagasay | Teacher III | Pilar Elementary School | Pilar, Bataan