Students Share Why They Love School
Behind the Scenes with the Families in Our “Joy of Learning” Videos
Any educator can tell you: students find so much joy in the journey of learning. To capture the twists and turns of that journey from their unique perspectives, we recently sat down with a few students to create a new video series called The Joy of Learning:
Two of the students in the videos, Mateo and Dylan, are brothers. After filming, we had the chance to sit down with them, and their sister, Ava, for a behind-the-scenes chat about their favorite subjects, teachers, and activities.
Read on for a fun recap of our conversation with three bright, eager kids. Thank you to Dylan, Mateo, and Ava for sharing your joy with us!
What have you done so far this summer?
Eva: We went to our Grandparent’s ranch for four days!
Nice! What do you call your grandparents?
Dylan: Just grandma and grandpa.
What grades are you all going into?
Ava: I’m going into first grade.
Dylan: I’m going to seventh grade.
Mateo: I’m going into fourth grade.
Right now, what do you think you want to be when you grow up and you’re done with school?
Dylan: When I grow up, I want to be a historian because I’m really interested in history, and I’m all about learning about it.
That’s awesome! Do you know what you would want to study?
Dylan: Kind of all of it. Especially the Roman era.
Mateo: I don’t know yet.
That’s ok! You don’t have to know yet. What’s your favorite subject in school?
Mateo: History and reading.
Okay, and why do you like those?
Mateo: I like history because you really can look back on civilization and how people did things before we had all this. I also like reading because, take The Hobbit, for example, I can really get the picture in my mind and see how it’s playing.
Ava: When I grow up I want to be a ballerina.
Wonderful! And why do you want to be a ballerina? Do you like performing in front of people?
Ava: Sometimes.
Sometimes it’s scary, right? But most of the time it’s exciting. Are you in dance class?
Ava: Not right now. My mom just signed me up.
(Shout out to Ava’s mom for setting this future ballerina up for success.)
This one’s kind of hard, so you can take a second to think about it if you want to. Why do you think that learning is important?
Mateo: How do I explain this…When we learn, we know what to do in a situation that we might not know if we never paid attention. And it’s important to learn, because you might want to know how physics works.
Dylan: Well, I would say learning is great, because it gets you ready for the real world. It’s really helpful. It can help you get set up for your career and helps you set up your life.
Those are very good answers on why learning is important. What do you think you are best at?
Ava: I’m good at helping!
Dylan: Last year we got assignments where we could do our own little project. We could do a like a short little movie on something, or a one-pager. I found it really cool that we could choose how we want to do that. I did a stop-motion video.
That’s cool that you had that option! Was that really hard?
Dylan: Not really.
(A moment of quiet)
Mateo: What was the question again?
Dylan: What are you really good at?
Mateo: Oh, besides reading and history I think I’m good at math.
(The interviewers would like it noted that Dylan is also very good at being a helpful brother!)
Tell us about a time that you had fun at school.
Dylan: One time I had fun at school is when we went on a full-week field trip to this outdoor ed thing, and I got to hang out with my friends. We got to learn about nature, we got to do hikes — it was really fun.
Mateo: A fun thing that I did during school would be when we went to San something…
Dylan: San Diego?
Mateo: Yeah! San Diego. We got to go on a cruise to see aquatic creatures in the ocean. It was pretty fun.
Ava: One of my favorite parts of school is when I get to play with my friends.
That’s a fun part of school, isn’t it — Do you like recess?
Dylan: Yes!
Mateo: Oh yeah.
Ava: *Emphatic nodding*
Think of your favorite teacher, a teacher that you have that you really loved. What about that teacher made them so helpful?
Ava: I love my teacher. She was kind and she was lovely.
Mateo: My favorite teacher was very kind and she never yelled. She’s patient and she really knows how to stay calm.
Dylan: I would say one of the teachers that I really liked was my first-grade teacher. She was really kind, really thoughtful, and really caring. She helped us out a lot and read books to us almost every day. Yeah, she was really kind.
We have one more question: If you could use everything that you’ve learned and everything that you’re ever going to learn to change the world, what would you do? What would you change?
Dylan: I would change the way people have opinions about other people. I would make them more trusting and not hateful.
Mateo: If there’s one thing I could change about the world, I would probably want more peace.
How about you, Ava, what would you do to change the world? How about free ice cream for everyone?
(Ava did not approve or reject our suggestion but gave us lots of smiles, so we’re going with it!)
Is there anything else you want to tell us about school? Anything else that comes to mind about why you love school or what you like about learning?
Dylan: I would say that it’s always good to learn new things, especially in person when we get to see our friends and our teacher.
Mateo: Meeting new friends and learning new things.
For more on how Mateo, Dylan, and their peers find joy in learning, see:
