Teachers suspect that many older students have 'checked out'

I always knew that student engagement with most school curricula was quite low for older high school students. This disengagement was and is not universal, but I was right there, in the room. It's tough to miss not only boredom among students, but frustration and restlessness and outright opposition.

And that was true prior to the pandemic and all the damage the world's reactions to this new threat have produced.

The most recent statistics are from 2016, in a Gallup Poll survey, so things could be much worse today (or better, but really?). The survey found 76 percent of fifth graders were engaged (the details on how this was measured are complex), while 18 percent were not engaged and 8 percent were actively disengaged (acting out, disruptive, angry).

The engagement decreases each year after fifth grade, eventually producing these figures: 34 percent engaged, 34 percent not engaged, and 32 percent actively disengaged. Think about that. Two-thirds of high school seniors are not engaged with school at some level.

Of course, those numbers are averages and we should expect some high schools might differ in their splits quite dramatically. But my sense, even back in 2010, when I retired from the high school classroom, was that the Gallup splits were certainly in the ballpark, at least in "regular" English classes and even many electives. 

There are various ways to increase engagement in learning and school, but the one strategy that seems most appealing is "experiential learning." That is a broad term, but it boils down to providing opportunities for students to engage in projects and the community and one another. More "hands on" and less yawning through lectures. 

You are likely thinking that we don't need a survey or breathless news stories to see the truth of the importance of experiential learning. I would bet serious money that what most people remember from their own high school days are tales from being in marching band, or on an athletic team, or part of the robotics club. 

Those thousands of minutes spent in a series of math classes often dominated by teachers going over homework that was copied from one another and explaining concepts that seemed divorced from real life (maybe not YOUR experience, but I hope you see some truth in this exaggerated description) would be Exhibit A in a case pointing out deficiencies in education.

Whew! The above is a 60-word sentence. Not easy to read aloud in one breath. It just sort of kept growing -- and that parenthetical certainly didn't help). And somehow the sentence culminated in a weird courtroom analogy that assumes we are prosecuting... students, teachers, the system, ignorance?

Perhaps it was unfair singling out math classes. Boring classes are not all that unusual, not matter the level. Think about many university courses that consist mostly of intense lectures and lots of independent reading. Not MY classes, of course.

Here's an edit of that 60-word behemoth:  Most high school graduates have experienced those boring, teacher-directed lessons.

Or is that too brutal an edit? Or too slanted? It certainly demands some sort of follow up examples to support that provocative claim.

I am happy to spend my last teaching years engaged in encouraging better writing. Most of the energy of a writing course comes from students and what they put on paper/the screen. 

That's my idea of engagement.