An Argument for Engagement

Have you ever woken up in the morning and said, "I want to be bored today?” Have you ever met a K-12 or even college student who woke up and said this or perhaps said, "I do not want to succeed today?” Engaged people do not say these things at the beginning of the day, the end of the day, or any other part of the day. People inherently want to be engaged and they want to succeed. Unfortunately, far too many of our nation's students wake up expecting to be bored and to fail as they pursue their day in school. This is a true tragedy and it needs to stop. 

Teachers can’t do it all.

Though teachers work directly with students and are responsible for the learning experience, we cannot blame them for the fact that far too many students find their educational experiences completely uninspiring. Society imposes an onerous amount of accountability on teachers. We cannot possibly expect any but the very best teachers to fully succeed. Interestingly, doctors alone are not expected to heal their patients. There is an entire infrastructure that supports their work. Pharmaceutical companies aid doctors in the pursuit of health. Similarly educational content companies must assist teachers, and students, in the pursuit of education. 

Educational content companies must recognize that the core of their work is to support teachers in engaging students in the learning process and provide learning tools so that all stdents can succeed. 

What does this look like in practice? 

Educational companies must recognize that the purpose of school is for all students to learn. Educational standards and objectives define what students must learn. An individual’s psychology, prior experience, and many other variables determine how each student learns. But, the most important variable in determining whether or not students can learn is whether or not they can engage with the content under study. In order for students to engage, the content must be relevant and exciting. 

Of course, each student brings different experiences to the classroom and educational content must match student experiences to be relevant. For example, consider a math activity that asked students to imagine they were on a subway needing to solve a problem. Students in New York City, Washington D.C., or Boston could easily personalize this activity. Students in Wyoming, Montana, or Idaho, who had never ventured far from home, would not be able to get past the first sentence, “You are on a subway,” Of course, students in rural America would be much better equipped to engage with a problem set on a large ranch than students in a major city. 

Simply accounting for student background is not enough to expect engagement. Highly relevant content must also align with student interests. A student, for example, might complain they hate math every time they are expected to focus on this subject. This same student might love sports and talk statistics whenever possible. If educators want to have the best possible chance of reaching this student, and the tens of thousands similar students, math content rooted in sports should be easily accessible. 

Math is certainly not the only subject area that must take specific backgrounds and interests into account. Can you imagine how a seventh grade African American child or a girl from any race feels upon hearing that the founders of the United States believed that "all men are created equal," a prominent statement from the Declaration of Independence? Anybody, including a Caucasian boy, might immediately be turned off by this historical fact, argue that the content was horribly irrelevant, and lose interest. 

High quality educational content will have the ability to support teachers as they seek to explain the Declaration of Independence in the context of 1776 and evaluate it in the context of our own day. Creative educators, working as content developers, will recognize the incredible opportunities for developing engaging lessons around these ideas. For example, students could hold a trial to evaluate the truth of the Declaration within the mind of its authors. Perhaps they hold a trial to evaluate our own time period in trying to judge those who lived in 1776. Perhaps they work in groups to write a Declaration for our own time period and then consider how people two hundred and fifty years from now will see their world different from our own. The opportunities for investigating the Declaration in its own time period and in our own are abundant. Creative experiences will generate engagement. Engagement will eliminate boredom and promote success. 

I’m a winner!!

The time has come for students’ perception of scholastic learning and perception of themselves at school to change. The phrases, “I am bored” and “I am a failure” must be eliminated from the lexicon. Educational content companies, getting high quality, creative, and engaging content into the hands of teachers and their students, will go a long way towards this effort.