Tag: Student Engagement

High Expectations in School, boy with book

Posted on

We have no better evidence of inequity and blindness than that which is found in our public schools every day across America. No matter the dedication, passion and training of our educators and school leaders, the devastating impact of generational poverty has led to a number of related and varied biases that can emerge when our neediest students learn among and from adults who have never experienced (and cannot picture) such challenging life circumstances. No matter how caring and well-meaning our educators are (and they are), many cannot comprehend the struggles and even trauma that our students experience. As a result, we are often lost in our attempts to compensate for the deficits that these students face. Or worse, we believe that we are doing…

Read More

Boy, Alone

Posted on

I have no name.  Only a number. I sit in the back row. The desk next to me is open. The one in front of me is taken by a girl with soft skin. I know her well from the back, for I have gotten lost many times in the darkness of her long, straight hair. The teacher seems nice but I don’t know her name and she doesn’t know mine. She talks a lot but her words don’t make sense to me. Some in the class nod their heads when she talks. Others just look down. She doesn’t look my way much. She has sometimes asked me for an answer, though I am quick to say that I have none to give. And now…

Read More

Lesson Plans, Student Engagement Strategies

Posted on

The daily dance around student engagement and lesson planning has been made much too complex in recent years, and I’m not sure why. We have countless definitions of what engagement is and what it is not, and we have varied opinions on how we should rate this concept when we observe a classroom lesson. Let’s be clear that true engagement is a highly advanced instructional skill and is much easier said than done. Still, I don’t think the definition itself is as complex as we are making it out to be. For me, I prefer to think of student engagement as synonymous with “thinking” or “learning,” and with a nod to things like student interest, choice and real-world application. The real caution here is that…

Read More

Instructional rigor, accountable talk

Posted on

The connection between thinking and speaking is real, sort of like the connection between dating and holding hands. I say this because there is really no way to be thoughtful about something or understanding of something if you are not verbalizing it somehow, usually by talking to someone around you. Of course, this replaying of the things we know comes in other forms that we find in schools like debate, journaling, and even note-taking. No matter how it plays out, we simply cannot complete the comprehension loop if students are not required to verbalize their learning somehow. This is a critical reality for teachers if we are ever going to realize the dream of equity for all students in acquiring the next-generation skills that they…

Read More

Kids Learning, Discussion

Posted on

It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. You know what I mean, those black-and-white photos that we’ve all seen of students from the 1800s sitting quietly in rows, silent, and in fear of reprisal like something out of a Dickens novel. And there on the wall, if you look closely, are the classroom rules for all to see and heed: Be silent during class. Do not talk unless it is absolutely necessary. I’m not kidding. This was actually a common rule in most classrooms. As someone who prefers to honor our history and not belittle it, I point this out only to say that we have come a long way as educators and as school systems. Still, as we stumble and perfect better…

Read More

Cultural competence, confidence

Posted on

I can personally and professionally attest to the fragility of the human spirit. That’s because I have been there, along with the rest of us. One minute we believe we can change the world and the next minute we are giving up on it. The thin veil of self-confidence that envelopes each of us, and our children in particular, brings into question the propriety and opportunity we have as educators in the words that we use and the actions that we take. For just a moment, let us all think back as far as we can remember, for it is there among memories pieced together that we might recall the first time someone suggested that we could be good at something, that we had some…

Read More

student hands of hope

Posted on

Personalized learning to improve student engagement Though all educators are quick to tell you that schools are about children and meeting their needs, the level of disengagement among kids paints a much bleaker picture. In fact, most students do not describe their schools and classrooms as “child-centered.” The good news is that we are getting better at it. We are learning and growing as an industry and don’t let anyway tell you that schools are not more engaging than they used to be. We’ve come a long way in the past 20 years in giving more learning over to students and providing more time for students to engage with each other. These are good steps for a community of educators that is evolving in positive…

Read More

high standards; instructional vision

Posted on

That ding you just heard was another text or email coming in to a principal who is already overworked and underappreciated as he or she tries to get through the last lunch of the day without having to call an ambulance or calm down an irate parent. It leaves us to wonder how in the world a principal might have the time to set forth an instructional vision and if that vision can somehow, someway mesh with the increasing demands we all feel related to state accountability measures and teacher appraisal. To wrap our arms around these disparate initiatives and bring them together under one unifying vision, a top-notch instructional leader must know the key levers to pull to make it all work. That means…

Read More

Chalkboard, old-school

Posted on

Cultural competence training among teachers and leaders and its related pedagogy have arrived with such bombast that one might think the system we now have is outmoded (which it is), uninspiring (which it is) and that there are scads of children tuned out (which they are) because we have somehow failed (which we have) to connect with them in any relevant way. Of course, it is not true that cultural competence has only recently arrived on the scene but it is true that our industry is finally catching up with what the kids have been telling us for years, that learning is about them and their needs, that we have got to meet them where they are before we can expect them to go where…

Read More