It's not uncommon to hear those advocating for deep and resounding change in education to introduce their position by reminding us that our current way of designing, organizing and "doing" school is based on principles inspired by the industrial revolution: a time when mass production, factory-based assembly lines and a whole culture of efficiency began to replace home-based, hand-crafted and time-intensive approaches to the creation of goods. Our attempts to create a new vision for schools, and for the type of education that occurs there, are constantly bumping up against the deeply rooted assumptions and beliefs that are part of this industrial-age thinking.
But there's another equally stubborn set of assumptions that runs alongside this industrial mindset—a set of assumptions that is currently being challenged by some of the work being done on student engagement.
Consider for a moment how the very familiar proverb, children should be seen and not...


