Every time a teacher asks children to listen they ought to ask themselves if they believe the children genuinely want to hear what they are saying. If the students don't want to hear it, they won't hear it, no matter how much we threaten them. Motivation, not resignation Children are discouraged from pursuing their own interests in school. The job of a teacher is to expand the horizons of the student, to cause the student to have more interests not less. It is a good idea to allow teachers to advertise different possibilities and let teachers teach what they know best in response to the expressed interests of the children.
Motivation is a terrible thing to waste.
Everyone doesn't have to learn the same stuff. Making school fun doesn't mean having the teacher dress up in a clown suit, or making teaching into Jeopardy. It does mean making learning fun in school in the same way that it is fun out of school. This list does not detail everything that could be done to fix education. Nevertheless, it gives an idea of where to begin.