Do Teachers Have to Be Entertainers? Here’s What They Say

The term “student engagement” is used so frequently in K-12 education that it’s beginning to feel somewhat cliché to some. But educators can’t simply retire it.

That’s because there is no learning without student engagement, defined as “the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education” by The Glossary of Education Reform.

And student engagement, especially in the higher grades, has been disturbingly low for some time. In a 2013 Gallup survey of approximately 500,000 students, most elementary students (8 in 10) reported feeling “engaged” in school. By high school, just 4 in 10 said they felt engaged. A Gallup poll conducted five years later resulted in similar findings: three-quarters of 5th graders surveyed reported high levels of engagement in school; by high school, just one-third did. And that was before the isolation of the pandemic and the ubiquitous use of cellphones contributed to students’ further disengagement, according to their teachers. So, what’s the answer to widespread student disengagement?

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