Personally, I was struck by the degree of student buy-in at SLOCA—which serves just 32 high-school students—compared to a typical public school nearby. In 90 minutes of observing the private-school class, there were zero interruptions, zero yawns, and zero cell phones. All 15 students, ranging from sophomores to seniors, had their homework successfully reviewed within the first five minutes of class; they all had their pens and notepads in front of them without being asked. As I listened to their interactions, it became clear, too, that they were engaged. They laughed when one of them made a joke about Frederick II being excommunicated a second time, and they lightly knocked on their desks when they liked a classmate's comment—a delightful custom I had never heard of. Each of them, moreover, answered a question from the teacher at least twice. Other than these moments, there was no noise, not a single distraction—and I was struck by the apparent absence of gender lines or observable differences between the youngest and oldest students in the class. Throughout those 90 minutes, they seemed like a group of old friends, united by a love of learning.

That the teacher was fluent in that day’s topic, the Holy Roman Empire, was clear in at least two ways: One, she answered every question thoroughly, without hesitation; two, I could actually hear every word she said, in the tone and volume she intended. She didn't have to yell to be heard, and she didn't speak quickly in fear of interruption. She could subtly emphasize certain words, and her jokes landed. Observing this class, I started daydreaming about what, if given the chance, I would teach these kids—not how I would teach these kids.

* * *

As I am writing this, I am observing a different class—one at the 825-student public high school where I teach. The educator’s passion is evident, and his typed lesson plans are immaculate and thoughtful. It's not completely clear how fluent he is in the subject matter, however, because he has been interrupted or distracted by 20 things in 20 minutes: a pencil being sharpened, a paper bag being crumpled and tossed, a few irrelevant jokes that ignite several side conversations, a tardy student sauntering in with a smirk, a student feeding yogurt to a friend, a random class clown outside the window, and the subsequent need to lower the blinds, to name a few. The teacher is probably distracted by a disconcerting suspicion that he’s talking primarily to himself. For the past half hour, I've been thinking about how I would teach this class—not what I would teach this class.

I know most of the kids in this public school: They're not hurtful or malicious, and most of them aren't even consciously rude. They’re just "cool" by default, the opposite of being intrinsically "stoked" or "pumped" (to borrow a few words from their vocabulary) about learning. It’s not a classroom-management issue in this case. The teacher could outlaw food and cellphones, but there would still be jokes, fidgeting, students with passes to or from another place—something to distract them. No matter how diligently he teaches them about the appropriate time to sharpen a pencil, there will still be this culture of coolness, the norm of disengagement.