Is Engagement only about students??

I love questions that aren't really questions. The answer to this one is, of course, no. Engagement in the educational process is just as important, if not more important, for the educators as it is for the students. It is highly unlikely a student is going to be actively engaged in a classroom where the teacher is disconnected and not motivated. Engaging teachers in creating interesting and captivating educational experiences for students is key. I do not support cook-book education.

Teachers are smart, they are talented, and given the opportunity, they can be creative and innovative. When teachers, like most other employees, are full vested in an innovative change, magic happens. It is the difference between doing change to teachers and inviting teachers to have a fulsome voice in the change and what it will look like.

There has been a Tweet circulating in the last two weeks, and I apologize to the creator of the quote because I don't know who it should be attributed to, but it says, "If we want children to take risks then they need to see their teachers taking risks, and if teachers are going to take risks then they need to see administrators taking risks." Nothing could be more true.

Education is a vocation where many voices help to improve the end result. The more we learn and the more we look for ways to apply that learning, the better the student experience will become. Perhaps the biggest learning for me as I have travelled through my 21st Century journey has been the need to not only listen and value the teacher voice, but the student voice as well. We need to see all of the stakeholders in the educational process as able and critical contributors to the direction education takes. There is no formula, no textbook with all the answers, no guru who can give us all the secrets to success. Success will come when all members of the educational community are actively engaged in creatively and innovatively transforming education into a powerful experience designed to ensure our students are ready for the world they are going to inherit.