and I believe inquiry-based learning is a powerful model.
"Engaging students," though, is a buzzword that has been repeatedly misused. Misused to mean that it's the teachers' jobs to engage students, to entertain them, to make sure they aren't bored, not the students' jobs to be active learners, and engage in the opportunities given them. "Boring" is an attitude, and it's a choice on students' part. There's always something interesting in learning for those who want to find it.
As I have cause to know, being one of those life-long learners who managed to get something from every teacher, even the burnt-out less interesting individuals. Thankfully, though, there weren't many of those; I was educated, and got to spend time teaching, in the days before the authoritarian standards and accountability movement with it's high stakes testing, with it's propensity for blame, threat, and punishment, with its obsession with "data," with constant "formative assessment" in the form of continuous testing, with its scripted curricula, for-profit "consultants," etc., etc., etc., murdered the joy in learning and teaching.
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