Wednesday, May 11, 2005
How are we supposed to engage the cogs?
There seems problem in education, in the year 7 to 10 year group, of ‘engaging’ a number of alienated, or reluctant learners, in their education.
Engagement is a mechanical metaphor and as such seems to relate to a mechanistic approach to education where teachers ‘deliver the curriculum’, and then measure and graph how much was transmitted.
It would seem better to ask what students are actually keen to learn about and tailor education around their questions. Creative teachers can easily ‘tie’ this back to official curriculums!
In Robert Fried’s excellent book,’ The Passionate Teacher’, a paragraph comes to mind:
‘For students to engage is not what is usually called ‘time on task’: responding to worksheets, recalling facts and dates, or reading chapters of a text and answering questions and the end. I want students to engage the way the clutch on a car gets engaged: an engine can be running, making appropriate noises, burning fuel, and creating exhaust fumes, but unless the clutch is engaged, nothing moves. It’s all sound and smoke, and no one gets anywhere.
In too many classrooms we see the sound and smoke of note taking, answer- giving, homework-checking, that so quickly follows. In the end, there is creativity and excitement for the few, compliance and endurance for ,most, rebellion and failure for some, but not very much work of high quality is being produced, and not much intense engagement of the mind and spirit takes place’.
Is this a picture of any classes you know at the year year7 to 10 levels?
What is the secret to engaging students at this level? Is it any different from other age groups?