Why are Americans obsessed with the apocalypse? Every other show and movie is the end of the world brought about by zombies, a war, a virus, a zombie war virus, deadly rain, an alien force, or a mystery. Either way the result is the same: A world without structure or government, where humans band together for survival, and everything has a gritty immediacy.

So, why do we all love these alternate realities? Do we seek violence? Do we wish to see the world end? At TSFires we think it has a lot more to do with some basic human traits we’ve all been neglecting, and which could really benefit your classroom.

We want our actions to matter. Once the world ends everything we do matters just a little more. In these worlds every decision can be life or death, every mistake can be your last. Humans want to matter. We want to know that what we do has an impact for us and for others, and that there’s a purpose to our existence.

In the classroom we don’t need to raise the stakes quite so high, but you can make it so that actions matter. When we tie the students together figuratively, or literally in climbing, their actions go from affecting a grade that they see a week later, to affecting another human being in real time. This impact can be made real through team games, group work, and project based learning. If you want students engaged, make what they’re doing right now matter right now.

We want good and evil to be recognized. A trope in any apocalypse flick is a leader who has gone mad with power, or a group of scavengers who become cannibals, a sociopath that people follow out of fear and cowardice. Tension and fear come from the zombies, but the real drama comes from seeing how the survivors react to such stress. In each case it is easy, almost rewarding, to recognize evil and root for its downfall. These movies also show us leaders who strive to be good, who act with decency even in an indecent world. These leaders show us the best in humanity. We have an innate desire to help good overcome evil.

Somehow the idea of a moral compass has almost left our schools. There are many reasons why, but a class discussion about what’s good or evil is left almost entirely for ethics classes. Any class can have such a discussion, and a discussion about what’s right or wrong pulls people in nearly as fast as a new episode of our favorite apocalypse.

We focus so much on content we often forget the only reason to study content is to get an understanding of the world, or humanity, and be more capable as individuals and citizens. The next time you teach a lesson in history, ask why each side thought they were right. When you teach a physics principle ask student to relate it to relationships or leadership. As a species we have a need to grow morally, to hone our sense of right and wrong. If you help students do this your subject will become one of their most memorable, meaningful classes.

We’re sick of materialism. At some point in all of the imagined ends of this world there’s a scene where the mad ruler has amassed gold and jewelry that is now meaningless; there’s a redneck walking though the remains of both a country club and its members, scoffing at the money they hid on their now decomposing bodies; or there’s a couple of kids having a diamond fight in a burned out jewelry store. The message is the same: there’s a lot in life that matters more than money.

Apocalypse flicks fill our inner need to know that our wealth isn’t really what matters. In the worlds where money is useless all that really matters is friendship, teamwork, having enough to eat, and learning to enjoy life and find meaning even when things are hard. That seems like a pretty good lesson to teach even in our boring world of relative stability.

In your classroom what do you do to help students find meaning in the moment, in their actions, in their attitudes, instead of in materialism? The standard message of work hard to get a good job to buy nice things just doesn’t serve this goal.

Being capable is cool. Think of your favorite apocalypse. Now think of the character who became an unlikely hero because they’re just so incredibly capable. They can hunt, fight, think, lead others, sew, fish, fix cars, make windmills, weld, and any other random skill you can think of. Now think of your students. Will they all become that hero? Or will they become zombie food?

I know that among my own friend groups the basic zombie plan (everyone has one) is to find me and do whatever I say. With years of adventure education and training they know I not only have survival skills, but also every other random skill that might be needed.

I think it’s gravely concerning that even if every school was performing academically perfectly (a far cry from reality) we would be turning out millions of graduates yearly who can’t cook, sew, do carpentry, garden, change brakes, even change tires, knit, file taxes, do laundry, or any of a thousand skills we could be teaching them.

If, at the end of the semester, your students have learned 10 useful skills along with all your academics, you will be one of the favorite teachers they’ve ever had. If they forget every academic fact you taught them but remember half the skills, you still will have changed their lives. Even better, if you incorporate skills into the academic learning you will anchor both the skills and academic facts by creating a wider neural net with more entanglement.

Sometime this next week have one conversation in your room where you teach students how to do laundry and tie it to an academic concept. Watch them reference both forever. Congrats on changing lives.

Life is physical. When will America acheive the lowest obesity rate in history? About 6 months after the apocalypse arrived. The scrappy teams surviving various wastelands tend to be healthy. Their life is gritty, visceral, and physical. And there’s something about that physical life that humans crave.

The lives we lead are inarguably tied to the bodies we live in, yet school culture pretends academics can be taught in a purely mental vacuum. In my current position I watch hundreds of food-insecure children arrive with Monster and Hot Cheetos for breakfast, and then I deal with the discipline issues teachers have all day. While grants for health are thankfully increasing, three semesters of random gym classes is hardly a diploma requirement that develops a healthy, capable population.

We all desire to thrive in mind, body, and spirit, and a school that makes any of the three rot will never develop true engagement.

Teach for the apocalypse.

The reasons that we love apocalypse stories, and the pedagogical lessons we could learn from them, are nearly endless. As teachers we could simply take away a great guiding question for ourselves: “Is what I’m teaching today making my students ready for the apocalypse?”

It is thankfully unlikely that the world will be overrun by zombies. But if each day you taught your students the academics, skills, and mindset that would make them survive in such a world, you’d quickly be one of their most impactful teachers.

TSFires’ Ten Generation Education (10Gen) mindset is all about focusing our teaching on the long, long term goals. If we raise a generation that’s only equipped to take a single set of academic tests at age 18, and do nothing after, then we’re shortchanging our students and society.

But if you’re helping to train a generation of highly capable, moral, healthy leaders who can work with others, know that there’s more to life than money, and who could survive the zombie hordes, then you’re making the world a better place for the next 10 generations at least.

So tomorrow, please don’t teach for the test. Teach for the apocalypse.