I attended a Working on the Work conference.  It’s about engaged learning.  I got really fired up.  I think we can all agree that lessons should be engaging, yada, yada, yada.  But WOW gives you a framework to evaluate lessons and emphasized that you have to change your belief system before you can have engaged learning.  You have to get rid of the belief that students who do the work and earn grade greats are being compliant, not necessarily learning anything, at least not anything they’ll retain.  Worksheets don’t work.  Lecturing doesn’t work.  Multiple choice doesn’t work.  Yes, I know all about standardized testing.  But, hello?  what are we doing to our kids?  I remember one lesson from high school because it was personally relevant and changed my way of thinking.  How many lessons do you remember?  Now I’m starting to get ticked off at the worksheets my son is bringing home for homework.  Math every night.  I asked him if it was work he didn’t finish at school, but he said, no, it was just homework.  Pointless!  I really hope this philosophy will spread quickly through the district so my son will have engaging teachers, not ones who will make  him memorize facts to regurgitate on a test later.  Or ones who will have him read a chapter and do the questions and vocabulary at the end.  Don’t get me wrong, he’ll do well because he’s a good student.  But what will he get out of it in the end?  Certainly not how to be a creative thinker.  Certainly not how to adapt in an ever-changing world.  Maybe he’ll learn how to correctly bubble.  I have to go cool off now.