October 2024
Greetings!
In my August Blog, I wrote about my deep concern for children’s well-being, particularly since the pandemic. I admit that I was one of the educators who believed that the further we were from the disruption and anxiety of COVID, the more settled and engaged students would become. I hope that is true for the children in your world, but my concern has, if anything, grown in the last couple of years. I argued that, though most of us are not trained as therapist, we are equipped to help our students become more aware of their engagement and, over time, more agentive in engaging or reengaging themselves in learning.
As promised, this month I’d like to build on the August blog by sharing two additional Pillars of Engagement and to share a set of questions you might use and adapt to support your students as they become more able to manage their own engagement in learning. In my 2018 book entitled Engaging Children: Igniting a Drive for Deeper Learning, K – 8, I proposed four concepts that I refer to as pillars of engagement. The pillars define the significant ways in which any one of us is engaged and they give us a way to focus conversations with kids either in groups or one-on-one in conferences.
In August, I wrote that intellectual urgency and emotional resonance are two of the pillars of engagement. In this blog, I’ll introduce the other two pillars. Through research in classrooms around the country, I’ve noticed two additional patterns that were remarkably consistent; kids’ engagement improves when there is a challenge to their existing beliefs and knowledge base and that engagement blossoms when students are tuned in to what they find beautiful, funny or compelling. I share the language you’ll read below with children, but I’ve also included some language to help make the connection between the names of the pillars and what kids are likely to say about each.
A bit more detail about these two pillars:
Engagement is deepened by perspective bending – engaged children are aware of how others’ knowledge, emotions and beliefs shape their own. When children talk and write about their beliefs, they are more engaged, they have a stake in the learning. We are all compelled by conflict; we read fiction to follow characters’ challenges, we read non-fiction to understand how people mitigate conflict in the world. Conflict engages us. In addition, students may be open to changing their thinking or beliefs when challenged and particularly relish the idea that their ideas can impact other learners. Their perspectives may bend, but rarely break. It’s in the bending that we find engagement.
Kid language: "Other learners affect my thinking. I affect theirs."
Engagement is often connected to a learner's Aesthetic World – engaged children can describe moments when they find something beautiful or extraordinary, captivating, hilarious or unusually meaningful. They may speak of a book or illustration, a painting or idea in science or math that seems to have been created just for them. They are drawn back to view it, discuss it, read again and again. They claim the idea as their own. Too often, in my view, we talk to students about their passionate interests, but we don’t talk with them about why topics and ideas are interesting or how to find their own areas of passionate interest. But when we talk to students (yes, even the youngest ones) about developing awareness of the Aesthetic World, they understand and can provide examples about their own version of an aesthetic world.
This (book or idea or experience) is so cool. It's mine and I'm drawn to it. It feels like it was created just for me. It's beautiful or hilarious or amazing."
I know that developing students’ aesthetic world or having one’s perspective bent doesn’t show up in any school’s curriculum, but I have found time and again that once we define and describe engagement using all four Pillars, kids will find themselves in one or more of them.
This is the bottom line: the more we talk with our students about what it means for us to be engaged, we can elicit their experiences about their own engagement (I call these engaged stories). The Pillars provide a structure and focus for those conversations.
I’ve found that the following questions (please feel free to revise them for your students) can also get the very important conversation about engagement started. The questions are included in the email body and as a downloadable PDF for quick use in your classroom. When students become more aware of their own engagement, they are more independent in managing it and when we have more engaged kids, we have fewer issues related to behavior.
Some thoughts before trying…
These prompts have two audiences! Your students, obviously, but I’ve found that the more we teachers share about our engaged experiences, the more students are reminded about their own. If you’re not getting a robust response to any of these prompts, try modeling your own response to one or more first. Getting kids to take responsibility for their own engagement is the goal, but they must be aware of their own levels of engagement. We build that awareness by sharing our own engaged stories.
I adapt these questions based on the age of the group or student with whom I’m conferring. I pick and choose among them and would never use all of them in a single session. Remember that students may need to be encouraged to recall experiences outside of school as well as in an academic setting.
You’ll notice that the questions relate to each of the four pillars of engagement without naming them. Once you’ve introduced the names of each pillar, use them with students, yes even the younger ones. Kids love to be members of the big word club!
Questions:
Describe a time when you found yourself lost in learning, like when the whole world around you seemed to disappear and all you could think about was what you were reading or learning right then. (intellectual urgency – IU)
Tell me about a time when you felt so into a book or something you were learning that you forgot about everyone around you. (IU)
Can you remember a time when you were reading or learning something, and you had very strong emotions/feelings about the book or topic? Describe it. (emotional resonance – ER)
Can you describe a time when another learner changed the way you think, feel, or believe about something? (perspective bending – PB)
Can you describe a time when you were learning something and it was so meaningful, so important, that it felt like it was intended just for you? You might have found it beautiful or profound or so worth remembering that you knew you would never forget it. (Aesthetic World– AW)
When you’re learning something new do you usually remember it for a long time? Why do you remember some things for a long time? What makes it more likely that you will remember something? (all 4)
What would you like to tell next year’s teacher about how you learn—what makes you most engaged, excited and ready to learn? (all 4)
IU – Intellectual Urgency
ER – Emotional Resonance
PB – Perspective Bending
AW – Aesthetic World
And here are a few questions for when students are not engaged . . .
Tell me about times when you might pretend to be excited about learning something or pretend to be reading, but you’re really not.
What do you think about when you’re not really into learning? When that happens, do you ever get back into the learning? How?
