Dave Theune's talk last week

When Mr. Dave Theune presented last Thursday,one sentence stuck with me for good, and that was
"Only Engagement can produce mastery"  - Daniel Pink, DRIVE. 'Engagement' in my opinion is a very potent word. It has to do with how engaged the students are in learning, how engaged the parents or guardians are in students' lives, how engaged the teachers' are in the classroom and so on. There are  numerous examples in real life, where we can pinpoint the type of engagement that could have led to a certain outcome.
I was impressed by Mr. Theune's enthusiasm that seems to pull the switch, leading up to productive learning outcomes. I agree with him about the importance of teaching community connecting with the parent communities. Adults around the young students are their best teachers.. whether in school or at home. So the idea of teachers and parents/guardians getting together, with the aim to showcase students' achievements, sharing the pride and planning for future is very refreshing, although not necessarily new. The point here is Mr. Theune made that effort to connect with the community.  In the hurly-burly of everyday classroom life, I can imagine teachers not paying attention to finer aspects of connecting with the community that could otherwise, make a real difference in a  student's life. I have seen this kind of engagement in STEMM Academy where I student-teach. Their Team-66 Robotics team meets after school and  is a community affair. Parents with varied levels of knowledge, participate to help the students learn and compete in various contests. When I attended one of their sessions, I was impressed by the role my mentor teacher plays to glue to the community together for a single cause, that is, learning. Students totally engage and drench themselves in various activities like building, 3D printing, programming, soldering etc during the robotics sessions. The pride they bring to parents and teachers by exhibiting team spirit and learning mind-set is indescribable. Mr. Theune's efforts in his school seem very similar. He is building a community where, every activity of engagement spins out another one. I also liked when he mentioned about letting your students teach, as teaching is the greatest form of learning. I believe that every one of us is a 'natural' teacher. As we teach, we engage our thought processes in a certain direction and strengthen our schema. Giving students such opportunities, can really help them develop the meta-cognitive strategies about the process of learning and the content itself.