Current trends in high caffiene intake, skipping breakfast, technology distractions from a good night's rest, economic stress on parents, rapidly rising substance abuse in families, escalating delinquency, and the current trend toward teaching to the test instead of critical thinking have coalesced to make the educational experience in most public schools a tortured one. Until we as a society address these practical issues we will see lagging academic performance in the public system. Enlightened private schools have worked hard to address these issues, but little seems to be happening in the public sector.

Absolutely yes...

I agree with you

That is a lot of questions in one....I think it is not that easy....Times are changing and our parents were equally puzzled with our interests and behaviors as we are with the next generation....From a very young age our children are now exposed to an incredible pace of knowledge generation and information flow whicn in turn affects their style of infomation processing.....it is not that they cannot get hooked, tjhey get hooked quickly and easily we just have to understand how we get them hooked.....video game producers have perfectly understood it.....so let's learn from them.....over 210 million lessons were delivered by Khanacademy in very few year.....what makes kids go there and come back? If we focused on understandding what gets them hooked rather than questioning their motivation, the quicker we can get them hooked. All children are motivated, but not necessarily motivated all are motivated to do what we want them to do the way we want them to do it. So I would like to encourage you to challenge the basic assumption you are operating on.

environment (social,educational,family)around student affect on student attitude

Reading your answers made me go back to some of my favourite quotations, sometimes we forget the emotional aspect..., I hope you like it:

"...what a person believes of himself/herself is crucial to his/her growth and development...a person learns this self-concept from the way he/she is treated by significant people in his life. The student takes his/her self-concept with him/her wherever he/se goes. He/she takes it to Latin class, to Arithmetic class and he/she takes it home with him/her...Everythin that happens to him/her has an effect on his self-concept".

Arthur W. Combs "The Human Side of Learning".

Very nice Laura...thank you for sharing......so let us seek to solve the problem on the teacher's and school's side....rather than condemming students and society at large :)

I suggest that what motivates (what moves people, what energises them) as students is the use and development of their own natural powers. In addition, as they move into adolescence, they want to make signifiicnt choices in a safe environment.

Traditional schooling does little in these directions beyond the first few years of children-centred primary education.

The reasons should be aimed at specific targets, for example, which I worked on in recent years is the challenge, to leave me speechless, some have been pleasantly.

Integrated Teaching -Learning method is the answer. I have tried out. It works even for most inattentive students

Current trends in high caffiene intake, skipping breakfast, technology distractions from a good night's rest, economic stress on parents, rapidly rising substance abuse in families, escalating delinquency, and the current trend toward teaching to the test instead of critical thinking have coalesced to make the educational experience in most public schools a tortured one. Until we as a society address these practical issues we will see lagging academic performance in the public system. Enlightened private schools have worked hard to address these issues, but little seems to be happening in the public sector.

Maria Montessori, for those who wish to study the secrets to her astounding educational philosophy, has developed the foundation for cognitive and volutional development of children who are taught to love learning and creativity. Having served on the School Board of a Montessori Program was quite an experience for this lifelong learner, especially in seeing high function autistics, Aspergers, dyslexics, and hyperactive students dramatically overcome their handicaps and limitations. Also, re-instituting music education in the schools will go far in developing underdeveloped corpus collosums and will increase the academic performance of even the slowest child. These simple, yet rare, examples should be promoted in education everywhere if we ever hope to reverse the terrible trends of children's education throughout the world. An achieving child is an engaged child.

Some experts think that ADHD is a fabrication of the pharmacetical industry, as children diagnosed with the disorder are usually treated with amphetamines and other stimulant drugs.

Yes, the collaboration between the USDOE and Big Pharma in pushing the approach to ADHD was certainly suspect to say the least and has received much commentary. Our position has always been to find out what is causing the hyperactivity (emotional trauma, nutritional deficiencies, caffeinated drinks, high sugar, yellow dye, etc.) and correct that BEFORE resorting to amphetamines stimulants. In our experience we have always found such causes and corrected those, and have never had to refer for Class III drugs. Thanks for your insights, Agueda.

You may find these papers interesting, they trial different pedagogical approaches to engage students with ADHD.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248988404_Beyond_ADHD_a_consideration_of_attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder_and_pedagogy_in_Australian_schools?ev=prf_pub

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259460367_Engaging_pedagogies_from_psycho-medical_deficits_to_'virtual_schoolbags'?ev=prf_pub

Article Beyond ADHD: A consideration of attention deficit hyperactiv...

Chapter Engaging pedagogies: from psycho-medical deficits to 'virtua...

To include senior students in planning academic activities - is one of the ways, which i have experienced in my present place (institution). But the method differs depending on the local culture, students' core culture if they are from diverse life-style, also it depends on the Institutional Management Philosophy & Policies.

Above all in my experience the means of motivating students to learn depends on the influencing personality of the institutional head & teachers. Hence, need-assessment is necessary to identify the appropriate & best way.

We need to remember that the majority of students (clients) at private schools are not representative of the student population in the public system. Unlike business, like private schooling systems, the public school system takes everybody, period.

Integrative teaching seems to be what many of us (I am a secondary teacher) utilize already. The problem for ADD/ADHD is not this diagnosis alone and its affect on the classroom environment, rather it is the commodities, such as: learning disabilities, oppositional defiance, poor social skills, low self esteem, possibly drug use to name only a few possibilities. Remember that they have a history of academic failure, and in many cases substandard care at home. Therefore, to no-ones' surprise the students are highly unmotivated and have highly developed mechanisms of behaviour to avoid doing work. the dynamic classroom environment.

On a personal note, I care and believe that my students will and can learn. Research has shown that it is important to make the material relevant, and I try to bring the "real world" into the classroom and show them what is possible. Sometimes they engage, and sometimes they do not.

Something that we may not have touched upon yet on this subject is the teacher's passion for the material they teach. Quality teaching tends to draw quality attention from learners. The professor's interest is revealed in the degree of creativity and thought behind each lecture keeping in mind that teaching and learning are a two-way conversation--opportunities for the learners to respond are as important as the lecture itself.