Who to blame when students say "I don't like studying!"?

I've been telling many people that I'd like to go back to school one day. There's something about being in school that I miss... But I'm not going to lie, the moment I realize how much work I'd have to do when I start wearing my "student" hat, laziness kicks in--I don't like studying that much... :p

As an adult who has had a taste of school both as a student and as a teacher, I cant agree more with my students when they say that studying is hard! Whenever I said to my parents that things were getting too hard and confusing at school, they always said "Well, if studying is easy, what's there to challenge you? It'll be boring! Life isn't easy, you know... So toughen up!" Ok, just like many wisdom words said by my parents, I agree... Life is hard, and being in school was like being a boot camp to prepare me to face the hardship of life.

What bothers me the most is when I hear students say that they don't like studying! Why do students say this to us?

Teaching prop - Part 1: Things I must carry to class

I can never understand how a teacher can ONLY bring a textbook and a marker to their classroom, because that will never be me! Ask anybody who has seen me in action, they'll say that I should have a trolley to replace my enormous tote bags full of papers, markers, magnets, pens, and many more...

When I go to class, here are the things that I must carry:

• My one and only folder where I keep my lesson plans, notes where I scribble down ideas, my teaching schedule that I personalize, and class lists,
• A copy of whatever textbooks my class is using,
• Color-coded folders designated for each class I teach. In each of these folders, I keep all worksheets and other students' work. Every time I make copies of worksheets, I immediately separate them into the-many-number-of-classes-I-have and put them in their respective folder. And since they're color-coded, I won't have any trouble identifying which folder to bring to class! 

Reviewing materials for exams - Part 1: Soccer match in class!

My students always ask that we play games in class to review materials prior to exam week. Basically, they'd like to do something fun, involves little writing, yet helps them review the materials. Thanks to the creative and generous teachers out there, I have made some review games using Microsoft Power Point. However, I often became one of those unlucky one teachers and didn't get an LCD projector so there goes my plan on playing games I spent hours making...

Using the same review questions, my students and I had a fun "Soccer Match" in the class, and here's what to do:

You need:

• a dice (preferably the fuzzy dice so won't rolled away easily when thrown around in the class)
• a picture of a soccer field drawn on the board (see example-1)
• a magnet (I like to paste a picture of a soccer ball onto the magnet so it feels like a "real" soccer match)
• small pieces of papers with numbers (as many as the number of students in one team x 3 sets)
• a list of review questions. I usually make questions that elicit short answers (definitions, examples, list of reasons/characteristics, etc.)