Below is a snippet from A.J. Juliani’s blog post, The relevancy problem: What can we do to make learning meaningful? I encourage you to read the entire post, which is an excerpt from his upcoming book, Meaningful and Relevant: Engaging Learners In An Era of Distraction. I already can tell that the book is going to be amazing.

We already know what works and doesn’t work.

Kids are not normally engaged in lectures, textbooks, homework, and traditional assessments. 

Our best learning experiences as adults didn’t happen when compliance was the focus either.

We know what happens when kids can tap into relevancy, and curiosity, and solve problems.

We know what happens when students get to work on challenges that are meaningful.

We know what happens when learners dive into an authentic curriculum and project-based learning experiences.

We know what happens when kids CARE about their learning. Because we know what happens when WE care about our learning.

I think that A.J. says this really nicely, particularly those last couple of sentences. I encourage all of us to lean into this angle when talking with parents, policymakers, and others who think that grades, test scores, and compliance are more important than children’s interest and engagement.