Engagement

Jeff Yearout, Ed Tech

Treehouse

, sent me a link to this article in the Wichita Eagle. Although the

article is framed around the concept that we’re losing our boys, it seems pretty

clear to me that the real issue is engagement.

As the article states, both boys and girls believe that much of what is

occurring in their classrooms is tediously boring and/or irrelevant to their

current and future lives. Are boys more likely than girls to withdraw from or

rebel against unengaging, seemingly-irrelevant course content? Are girls more

likely than boys to sublimate their desires to do the same? I don’t know.

Someone better-versed in school psychology and/or sociology will have to answer

those questions. But I do know this:

If schools (and universities) want to be relevant to today’s youth, they are

going to have to find ways to become more engaging in order to compete with the

interactive, individualizing, empowering technologies that adolescents are using

out of school.

As educators, we are in a battle for eyes, ears, and brainwaves. So far many

of us are losing (and, as a result, so are our students).