The Importance Of Student Apathy

Apathy means lack of concern or interest, as well as lack of emotion or feelings (Bush, 2009). Exhaustion of emotional reserves can cause nurses to become apathetic, uncaring, and preoccupied. It takes a toll psychologically on the mind causing emotional overload before a nurse becomes numb to emotions. Apathy eventually causes you to feel fatigued and a lack of concentration and reduced productivity at work. Long-term apathy can cause absenteeism and tardiness, complaints by co-workers and patients, and result in job termination (Bush, 2009).

Gradually, lectures and discussions that were once interesting start to seem boring and irrelevant, and the temptation to skip classes become greater and greater. (Benton)

As students were forced into their growth of knowledge in elementary school and middle school by continuously being taught basics, in order to prepare them for high school and beyond, they get to gain their freedom and decide whether or not they want to meet their teachers’ marks in high school. Throughout the school year, there comes a time where students have to sign up for classes. By having this choice, students can decide on how they want to challenge themselves in the next school year. During my two and a half years of high school that I have conquered so far, I learned that in a classroom setting there are students who take advanced courses, enjoy the subjects that they chose to take, and try their best to get the best grades that they can receive, in order to prepare them for their future in adulthood. However, there are also students who do not try or realize the importance of the free education given to them because they do not have an interest in the subjects that teachers are teaching them or are just being forced by their students to attend school. Some teachers try their best to bring out the motivation in these students who do not yet see that education is power and freedom, but there are also teachers who ignore these helpless students that are blinded by the present things that affect them like popularity or living with the motto that “you only live once”, because these teachers do not have the inspiration in the

Indifference means not caring. According to Google, indifference means, lack of interest, concern, or sympathy. Unimportance. The novel Night by, Elie Wiesel, shows many ideas of indifference. The quote on the front cover, “A slim volume of terrifying power”- The New York Times, touches me because it is just one man's story out of millions that have a story to tell of the terrifying horror that happened to them during that time. Of course, indifference was part of the whole book because it was about the Jews and the Nazi Army did not care about them.

What is apathy anyway? Apathy is the lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern for what is going on around us. We all experience apathy occasionally when we feel unmotivated or uninterested in our daily tasks. However, this is normal from time to time while constantly behaving without feeling is not. As a result of people wanting to fit in with others so they will be liked, being wasteful, and wanting others to get hurt they have caused a growing immense problem.

As stated above, apathy can help motivate some people. In fact, the Greeks had an entirely different idea behind the word apathy. In the original Greek word, apatheia was defined as the insensibility to pain or suffering. The Greeks had an idea that one should push through and even ignore pain. In this way of thinking, the Greeks believed being they could be objective or impartial due to non-suffering. When properly reflected upon, apathy can, in fact, inspire a person to push past the fear of pain or failure. It is important to understand that failure will happen, yet when it does we must bounce back, learn from our mistakes, and press on. We cannot hide from failure, it will come regardless, or we will grow apathetic to the situation. If we truly have an interest in the goal, then it is imperative to stand up and face what may happen. While it may hurt, and may even in fact frighten us, we must push forward. We must not concern ourselves with the pain, the fear, and the failure and focus on the goal. We may learn from all of these.

Suddenly Senioritis hits students like a freight train. Why would a student who planned on being a English major or a lawyer even want to think about taking a calculus class? Is there a reason for a future college professor to be taking classes on animal sciences? Seniors begin to get a sense of frustration that they were led to believe that those classes were needed. This realization will cause seniors to skip classes they don’t like. We start to count down the days until graduation, like how middle school kids would count down the seconds before the final bell would ring in the last class of the day. The clocks seem to be slowed down, as time drags on for the seniors who just want to move on with their lives. High school classes just don’t seem to hold seniors’ interests after senioritis

By becoming apathetic to a situation, I tend to lose all feeling for the situation whether it be positive or negative.

Twenty-five percent of American Teenagers drop out of high school each year. What does this say about America’s education system? Are students not interested or are they tired of memorizing a subject and then having a letter grade represent how much they can remember. Some articles suggest that America should decrease the number of years that teenagers spend in high school because many teenagers already know what they want to study and do not want to be stuck studying something they are not good at or interested in. America needs to redesign the school system so it can help students prepare for their future and have more classes that students are interested in.

Imagine a 12th grade student sitting in class looking miserable, tired, and annoyed. Looking around, one notices her mood seems to spread and show up in other students. One by one each person in the class changes. They snap at each other, turn work in late, put in half effort, and don’t pay attention. Teachers notice it, parents notice it, and even the students notice it. The cause of this lack of interest is simple, senioritis. While senioritis isn’t considered a serious sickness it has only one cure, graduation. Senioritis is a sickness that most seniors experience at least once in their lifetime where a student is done with school and have mentally checked out before the year has come to an end. A person stops putting in effort and stops caring because they are simply tired of the whole idea of school.

For the past few years in America, the people have seen how much education has decreased in the country. The people are not educated well enough in a specific subject, and that is the biggest problem in society. Students go to school five days a week, and they take some classes that honestly are not needed nor will be needed in the future. If someone wants to be a Psychiatrist, why do students need to know what X is in an Algebra 2 problem? Students should take the classes and courses needed to pursue the students wanted career and not just a class to take up their time and effort.

Student apathy grows depending on the relationships between teachers and students and student to other students. These relationships prove to have an influence with student apathy at all grade levels, especially elementary. Students either develop closeness or a conflict with their friends and teachers throughout the year. People are social and they prefer to relate to others. Bad relationships hurt the student’s psyche. When conflicts occur, a student’s engagement decline, and they do not feel successful and do not contribute with ideas in the classroom. Teachers, who do not relate and work with their students, fail to keep students interested. Students will not listen to a teacher who is not their friend. When conflict arises with friends, a student will fail to be active with their education. Friction acts as a major distraction for students and increases student apathy (Hosan, Hoglund).

Students in today's classroom are not focused in class as they should be. Some reasons involve technology, but a big factor is what they are learning is simply boring. If the school system focused more on subjects teens could relate to, school participation would greatly increase.

Astin, A. W. (1984). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal of college student personnel, 25(4),

Being real with her students is Mrs. Carbone main philosophy. She tells her students they will have difficulties in her class, since is less challenging to be a dual enrollment student than to to be in an AP class, but they will have a lot to gain and benefit from the content learned. She will always treat students fairly and make sure they will get the most out of her class (Carbone). Mrs. Carbone believes there is not much the school can do to get the students motivated. The teachers can stimulate students, but at the end it is their responsibility to learn and participate in class. It is a student’s choice to enroll in the AP U.S. Government and Politics class, so they have to understand that if they do not have the interest to participate,