For many, engagement is the act of demonstrating on task behaviors. Children's eyes looking at the teacher. Children dutifully completing assignments. Quiet calm as children do the work of schools.
However, these behaviors of completing assignments and paying attention to the teacher are acts more of compliance than engagement. Students fulfilling the obligations of school rather than meaningfully participating in the learning process.
Engagement seems like it should be more. Engagement means an active involvement in thinking about the task, taking personal ownership, and creating something over their own. Students intake a new challenge or concept, play with the idea, converse with other, and the learning evolves into a dialogue or product. Engagement involves energy, investment, passion, and creating something of personal connection.
In order to accomplish this, one needs to question our assumptions of what a class needs to look like. It may look like children actively sitting in the desks reacting to instruction and completing assignments. It also may be students on the floor building recreations of ancient castles, filming stop motion pictures of life within the castle. Engagement may be argument over whether the "patriots" or "loyalists" had the moral high ground during the revolutionary war. Engagement requires students to take a stand and actively cultivate a personal position. It is then, when learning is personal it is meaningful. Learning experiences that require solely compliance last only as long as they need to be completed. However when learning experiences create engagement, the skills, competencies, and knowledge are sustained for a much longer period of time.
Great post - sometimes we use that word and do not know what it means! (Best movie EVER, by the way...) Your post reminds me of Angela Maiers and what she said in The Passion-Driven Classroom. "...96% of teachers reported that creativity should be promoted in the classroom. However, when asked which students they actually preferred to teach, teachers chose the students who were most compliant."
ReplyDeleteMaybe we need to change what "good teaching" looks like in our minds. Start with administrators - what specifics are they looking for in a walk-through, or when they formally observe? Do we still think it's a "stand up and lecture" they're looking for, or is it okay if each child is doing something different? When I walk the halls of my middle school, it hurts to see so many teachers still standing at the front, talking AT the kids (who are sitting there - acting as if they are compliant). Maybe we need more videos and photos of what engaged students look like and sound like...
Thanks for this post - it struck a chord with me!