The Age of Engagement, Well-Being, and Identity

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

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Though stuck-in-their-ways teachers and out-of-date schools are often blamed for failing to engage their students, in the Age of Achievement and Effort, it was actually top-down government accountability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

governments as well as Democratic ones started to raise taxes so they could increase teachers’ salaries. Parents and the mainstream media realized how disgraceful it was to be in one of the world’s most advanced economies, yet still have school systems where teachers worked second or third jobs on evenings and weekends simply to support their families.44

In England, parents also began to side with teachers in opposing the standardized tests that they felt were sucking the joy out of children’s learning.45 Meanwhile, Scotland and Wales divorced themselves from England’s educational policies altogether, including the policies on testing.

By December 2019, the international PISA results received very little coverage at all. Everyone, including the media, had gotten wise to the game. If a country went up or down a few places or points, did it really mean all that much? Why should anybody really care? Only a few diehard zealots still echoed Chicken Little and said that the sky was falling. The Age of Achievement and Effort, it seemed, had run its course.

Two decades into the new century, there were new, far more important things for the world to worry about than test scores. There was a global surge of mental health problems among young people, who were experiencing rising rates of anxiety and depression.46 Technological change enticed a new generation into establishing online identities that often distracted them from more fundamental engagements with their learning, and from developing face-to-face relationships with each other.47 The greatest global refugee crisis in fifty years propelled millions of youngsters into unfamiliar schools around the world along with accompanying challenges for their new teachers.48 Racial injustice, climate change, economic inequality, political polarization, and threats to democracy created a growing sense that the world was taking a dangerous turn for the worse.

Meanwhile, although many countries had started to come to grips with educational inequalities in urban areas by harnessing partnerships with foundations, universities, and businesses, inequalities in the

hinterlands of the United States, Australia, and elsewhere persisted and grew.49 Securing improvement in communities that had lost their industries and livelihoods called for different strategies than ones that had worked in the world’s great cities.50

With increasing consistency, educational systems have begun to enter a new Age of Engagement, Well-Being, and Identity. The defining questions for schools are no longer concerned with achievement, opportunity, and competitiveness. They cut to the very core of what Irish poet William Butler Yeats called the “marrow-bone” of who we are.51 These questions are more personal, cultural, and existential than the ones that had defined the Age of Achievement and Effort. 1. Who are we?

2. What will become of us?

3. Who will decide?

In the Age of Achievement and Effort, pol- The defining icy priorities for many states, provinces, and questions for systems had been based on three simple, spe- schools are no cific, and easily measurable priorities. These longer concerned were raising achievement in literacy and math- with achievement, ematics and increasing rates of high school opportunity, and graduation.52 In the Age of Engagement, competitiveness. Well-Being, and Identity, though, policy- They cut to the very makers have started to draw attention to the importance of new capacities and competencore of who we are. cies. In Norway, for example, these include developing the skills of learning and metacognition; the abilities to communicate, collaborate, and participate; and the capacities to explore, inquire, and create.53 Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence defines four desired capacities for its students: becoming successful learners, developing as confident individuals, being effective contributors, and becoming responsible citizens.54 Drawing on the results of the OECD policy review to which Andy contributed, Wales aspires to create ambitious, capable learners; enterprising, creative contributors; ethical, informed citizens; and healthy, confident individuals.55 In the United States, the Every

Student Succeeds Act of 2015 also promoted alternative measures of student achievement other than standardized tests. Almost everywhere, change has been coming.56

Even in the highly tested Asian educational systems, the tide has started to turn. For example, the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education—South Korea’s largest school district surrounding the capital city of Seoul—has built a network of over eight hundred innovative schools (a third of all its schools) committed to developing dignity, peace, and social justice.57 Singapore, meanwhile, has placed increasing emphasis on making learning more joyful, meaningful, and values-based.58 It has reduced the amount of testing in primary schools. It has also introduced a national plan for outdoor adventure learning.59 In the United States, ASCD has mobilized its resources to support a Whole Child for the Whole World campaign.60 The OECD itself has significantly expanded its portfolio beyond PISA to encompass evidence on students’ well-being and has led a global effort to create a vision for Education 2030 that includes over thirty competencies such as compassion, creativity, curiosity, meta-learning skills, mindfulness, and gratitude.61

This shift from one educational age to another has also been evident in the Canadian province of Ontario that is one of the two key sources of first-hand evidence about both engagement and disengagement in this book. In 2003, Ontario was squarely within the Age of Achievement and Effort. The province’s priorities were to “raise the bar” and “narrow the gap” in measured achievement in literacy and numeracy. In addition, there was a determination to improve high school graduation rates and restore public confidence in education.62 We will see more of how Ontario’s Age of Achievement and Effort affected student engagement in chapter 5 (page 159).

In 2014, though, under new Premier Kathleen Wynne, the Ontario Ministry of Education set out four fresh priorities in its Achieving Excellence report.63 One was to maintain public confidence in the education system, which had gained support by improving student performance 17 percentage points over the previous decade. Second,

excellence was now defined more broadly beyond literacy and mathematics to include other areas of learning like science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics (STEAM). A third priority was equity, which was no longer interpreted solely as narrowing measured achievement gaps in literacy and mathematics. Now, it also encompassed inclusion of diverse students and their identities, so they could see themselves, their communities, and their needs reflected in the life and learning of their schools. The final pillar of Ontario education reform was developing children’s physical, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual well-being.64

Elsewhere, we examine what these new questions and priorities have meant for students’ and teachers’ well-being and identity.65 This book focuses specifically on the engagement dimension of the Age of Engagement, Well-Being, and Identity.

What are the challenges for fostering student engagement in this newly unfolding world? How will we engage students in rural areas and small former manufacturing towns, as well as in our urban metropolises? How will we engage and motivate students from different backgrounds, cultures, and identities, and with a range of abilities and disabilities? How, in this new age, can we engage children and teenagers not just with their learning, but also with feeling like they belong in their communities and have a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives?

More and more people are realizing that we cannot keep on pushing up achievement with more testing, pressure, resilience, and grit. These approaches can work for a few students, to be sure. For others, however, who foresee bleak job prospects and are rethinking what their purpose in life might be in the uncertain years ahead, calls to buckle down and force themselves through an alienating curriculum just to bump up test scores make little sense.

It’s time to get back to the big questions that face all educators. What can be done that will not just make our students clever test takers but also enable them to become deeper learners and better citizens? What role can our schools play in helping them become more