Editor’s Note: This content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board.

Many students in high school are checked out of the learning game, but the current approach to get them back in isn’t working. The problem that needs to be addressed is not making kids invest in the world — it’s making them want to.

Intrinsic motivation is something kids naturally lean toward. When babies are very young, curiosity and motivation go hand in hand. If a baby sees something colorful and wants to touch it, they do. But as kids age and become more invested in their screens, they begin to lose that sense of curiosity.

People generally know dopamine as the happiness molecule, but it can be more accurately described as a chemical that promotes desire. So when people correlate their dopamine levels with electronics, they allocate all their desires to one spot. Anything other than that becomes irrelevant to them.

Perceived relevancy impedes interest in schoolchildren of all ages. As someone who just graduated high school, I can attest that I was excited about college just so I could study things I care about. I, like many others, had a case of senioritis last year, but I still recognized that there was a purpose to the curriculum I was learning. This did not seem to be the case for most of my classmates.

Many of my peers complained that they would care more about school if they felt what they were learning applied to the real world, and this sentiment is popular online. A couple of years ago, it even became a popular online joke to ask math teachers how many times a day they used the math they were teaching. When the teachers came up empty-handed, the teenager consensus was reaffirmed: Our learning was useless.

However, core curriculum exists for a reason. Even though I wasn’t planning on majoring in biology, taking the class helped me draw mental connections when I was out of the classroom. But if students fundamentally believe the material they are learning isn’t relevant, then their intrinsic motivation goes into hibernation. As a result, many fixate on their phones.

Making those connections and independently forming analytical views of the world is the skill from school I am most grateful for. I wish others felt the same about their time in high school. After all, the goal of its curriculum is not only to prepare students for college but also to make them better societal participants — and I take a lot of joy in being capable of participation. But it is important to note that what makes me happy reflects what motivates me. It is also important to keep in mind that one person’s motivation is going to be different from the next.

This falls into the discussion of intrinsic motivation. I believe that if students in high school began to independently research the uses for what they’ve learned, they would be much more motivated in their classes. An example of this might be a student looking in a university’s course catalog to preview specific courses they may be more interested in than the generic high school class. Another might be finding clubs or programs with hands-on applications that are not affiliated with the student’s school. A change of scenery and a new teacher can make a world of difference to a bored mind.

I urge high school students to keep going. Students need to find something that excites them for the future and find a way to get closer to that subject in any way possible. The common curriculum is undoubtedly arduous, but those classes will help students reach their career and life goals.