Re^4: Bling Bling (or: Teaching Perl to Teenagers)

[Sprad]

At the same time this should be done only for students who want to obtain the knowledge.

As a teacher, I would give anything to teach a room full of students who want to be in my class. Unfortunately, that's never the case. There are a few students who genuinely want to be there, sure. But a lot of them are there for the wrong reasons.

• My class is less strenuous than PE
• My class is easier than Spanish
• My class doesn't require you to talk like Speech does
• The students' parents made them take it
• There weren't enough seats in their desired class
• The student has a crush on some other kid in my class
• Hey, this class uses computers! I bet we'll get to play games and surf Facebook all day!

Then there's the different pressures on the teacher. Gotta keep those enrollment numbers up, especially when budgets are constrained. A class of 3 very interested, very dedicated students doesn't look as good on paper as a class of 25 bored, distracted kids. I'd rather teach the 3, but the ideal is far from reality.