From Achievement to Engagement
The Age of Achievement and Effort narrowed learning to what is easily measured, concentrated undue attention on “bubble kids” just below the threshold of measured proficiency at the expense of students with more profound learning needs, and sacrificed engagement in learning for performance in testing. No wonder that super-strict and quasi-militaristic classroom and school behavior programs have flourished in the United States and England.42 The popularity of these programs is a sure sign that these national systems have sacrificed lasting student engagement with broad and deep learning for short-term compliance with an antiquated educational order. Though stuck-in-their-ways teachers and out-of-date schools are often blamed for failing to engage their students, in the Age of Achievement and Effort, it was actually top-down government accountability policies that were primarily at fault. The Age of Engagement, Well-Being, and Identity
Large-scale change happens when old solutions become exhausted and new, more pressing challenges emerge. In the second decade of the 21st century, these problems came thick and fast. In the United States, the strategies of privatization, testing, and charter school development began to run out of steam. Results were showing no largescale improvement, and people got tired of the constant attacks on teachers. Wildcat strikes by teachers in some of the most conservative states were supported by broad sectors of the public.43 Republican
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and Macau. This created the false impression that Western countries below these newly included systems were actually getting worse, even when their actual scores had not declined. Moreover, the apparently exceptional performance of many students in Asia was at least partly explained by a vast shadow system of private after-school tutoring and cramming schools to prepare students for university entrance examinations.40 According to the OECD’s own 2019 data on student quality of life, these super-competitive Asian nations, where achievement goals eclipsed all others, actually had the most dissatisfied students in the world.41
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