What’s the equivalent of quiet quitting in school?
In the work world, we’ve seen a big increase in so-called “quiet quitting” – a decision to do the minimum required, rather than overtaxing yourself for the sake of your job. (There was a very interesting discussion of this on Dr. Brené Brown’s Dare To Lead podcast this week.) It seems to me that one piece of this is that worker productivity and wages became decoupled several decades ago, and the slowing of work efficiency is one lever that employees still have to push back against this.
What about in school? How do you quiet-quit when the requirements are specific and inflexible? Actually, it’s pretty easy, and it seems to me that we’re seeing it across the country.
- Take a less rigorous course schedule. (the number of AP tests and the total student participants have fallen every year since 2019)
- Don’t join extracurriculars. (Sports and arts have both experienced participation drops in recent years.)
- Disengage from learning.
I am a supporter of taking back control of your life from those who seek to control it; however, I hope that we can find a way to make the school experience less onerous, so that students don’t want to quit the things that can bring them joy, and so that they are once again engaged with their innate curiosity and creativity.