The Imperative of and Looming Crisis in Student Engagement

In his article "Getting Our Students to Own Their Educational Experience," Raymond Cirmo, a physics teacher at Connecticut's Cheshire Academy, nicely articulates every teacher's struggle.  "There is no getting around the need for knowledge, and as classroom teachers it is our job to make that knowledge available to our students," he writes.  "But it is also our responsibility to create an environment in which students will want to gain the knowledge presented in the classroom. And therein lies our greatest challenge."

In considering how we can design the most powerful education for our students, I believe that we must realistically take into account the myriad developments in their lives beyond school. The competition for our students’ time and attention is fiercer than it has ever been.  To the already formidable ranks of distractions that all of us faced at this age have been added the proliferation of social media and the many-faceted fruits of ever-evolving technology.  Any study of this landscape reveals quite clearly the qualities that young people seek and appreciate in their lives beyond school; experiences that are deeply interactive, that are relevant to their particular interests, that make room for choice and differentiation, that provide avenues for self-expression, that allow for ongoing and escalating mastery and recognition of achievement, that give the opportunity to collaborate with others towards common goals, that offer the chance to make a lasting impact on their world.  If “school” continues to consist of the same kind of experiences that traditional education has provided, with remarkably little variation for the past 100-plus years, we run the risk of chronic disengagement.  Students - especially motivated and conscientious students - will undoubtedly continue to do what is asked of them, but this compliance should not be mistaken for meaningful engagement. Acquiescence is not a transformational quality.  In order to motivate our students to invest themselves fully in their schoolwork, we must offer the same qualities in their educational experiences that they seek and can so easily find in their lives outside of school.