Confronting the Crisis of Engagement: Creating Focus and Resilience for Students, Staff, and Communities

by Douglas B Reeves, Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher

Stop apathy in its tracks with the 5 C’s of engagement

Disengagement, disenchantment, distress—the three "D’s" of many post-pandemic schools. If we are to find our way back from this brink, every student, teacher, and leader must relearn how to lean in. It’s time to focus, know one another, and stop chasing so many initiatives. It’s time to shake things up so learners want to participate.

From faculty meetings to student conferences, casual greetings to grading, you can learn to use practices that most powerfully reflect the Five C’s of

Connections — feeling known, valued, and tethered to others Conditions — being able to learn in a stable environment in which expectations are high Challenge — engaging in an endeavor knowing your "high jumps" in terms of intellectual and creative risks will be supported Control — the privilege of learning with a balance between ownership and support Collaboration — deepening one’s knowledge and identity as a learner by being skillful at relationship-building Our students are looking to us as the grownups in the room to model what it looks like to belong, believe, and balance high expectations with compassionate support. With Confronting the Crisis of Engagement in hand, you have the guide to make that happen.

176 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 18, 2022

Reviews

[Chad Durham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful book that I needed to read. Really liked the breakdown of what “engagement” really means. It showed me what I need to work on, as well as highlighting a few things I do okay with.

[Chase Parsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Confronting the Crisis of Engagement” was somewhere in the “good” range as far as pedagogy books go. There was nothing I disliked and yet it did not blow me away. The authors (Reeves, Frey, Fisher) seek to a make every classroom an engaging one.

Building healthy and trusting two-way relationships is an ongoing theme. The importance of learning names, cutting off tech distractions, constructing safe classroom environments to allow for risk-taking, being open with colleagues when collaborating about teaching practice, and more, are reviewed. The part about motivation was intriguing. The authors defined it in four parts: competence, personal significance, feedback/progress, and choice. Also, the book included a handy chart of strategies to engage students (appendix), chapter summaries, and handouts (also available online).

Some of the book’s ideas and strategies might be overly optimistic, and it read like it came from an ivory tower at times. Nevertheless I found the book to be good and I would recommend it to anyone interested in teaching. 3.5/5 stars.

[Merriya · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not very impressed with this book. I did not find any new information or insights; the basics were all things that schools have been grappling with for some time. The solutions offered were very superficial and often presented in a judgemental manner as if to say, “If anybody at your school cared or did their jobs, you wouldn’t have any absentee or engagement issues.” This book left the impression that the authors’ had been disconnected from schools and classrooms for a long time. I think this book is far behind where our district is at in these discussions regarding relationship building and engagement. Additionally, the authors’ treatment of the subject is often very vague and superficial. There is more in the way of platitudes and finger-waving at the “bad schools, bad teachers, bad administrators” than useful, actionable suggestions for moving forward. The condescending tone in which the book is written is a big obstacle to the authors’ message as well. It was difficult to get through without giving much back to the reader.