What if poor student engagement indicated a problem not with the student, but with the school environment? That would actually be good news for educators because there are so many relatively simple things they can do to improve the environment, McREL’s Susan Shebby and Tameka Porter write in the March Research Matters column of ASCD’s Educational Leadership. One step they recommend: Talking to students as fellow human beings who have interesting things to say, rather than merely expecting them to recall content, can work wonders.
An estimated 3 million U.S. students stopped attending school during the pandemic because they couldn’t see the benefit, but “all hope is not lost,” Susan and Tameka write, because teachers have the ability to repair those broken bonds.
