Student engagement - what does that mean again?

After watching my Year 9 class actively participate in the third of six hours on a self-selected assignment, I'm thinking a lot about student engagement.  I had the pleasure two days ago of saying to a student 'you can only do this for homework if it's fun for you'.

Shouldn't that be one of the measures of value in education?  That is, intrinsic motivation and interest from the student? 

The assignment is a rubric - much choice is given.  For my class, I asked that they selected three activities.  Because this is a class of high achievers, I did not stipulate that they MUST complete particular activities.  I was really interested to see WHAT they would choose if given full permission to follow what appealed.

The rubric is for the novel Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubenstein.  It can be found here.

What I've discovered is that students are 90% engaged in an authentic way - I have been sitting at the back of the class and listening to conversations around the room.  90% of these are about the novel, and it warms my English teacher heart to hear debates ranging from the nature of goodness to how we treat animals in our society.

Edglossary.org talks about 'student engagement' as being a potentially difficult thing to define, with variations from school to school:

 

It should be noted that educators may hold different views on student engagement, and it may be defined or interpreted differently from place to place. For example, in one school observable behaviors such as attending class, listening attentively, participating in discussions, turning in work on time, and following rules and directions may be perceived as forms of “engagement,” while in another school the concept of “engagement” may be largely understood in terms of internal states such as enthusiasm, curiosity, optimism, motivation, or interest. 

 

My measurement is definitely the latter rather than the former (although the first is naturally occurring anyway!) -  enthusiasm, curiosity, motivation and interest are all words I would use to describe how this class is responding to choice.

It also shows me that, in a system that controls student bodies - with one type of table and chair, bells that go on the hour, every hour, defined timetables that cannot be deviated from - students desire choice and, yes, even power over some aspects of their day.  I believe that the more we can hand over to them in this way, the better it is for both student and teacher.  How can we expect young people to take ownership of and responsibility for their lives if we continue to do it all for them in this way?  It just doesn't make sense to me.