Is there an engagement crisis?

Aside from attendance issues, this is the bit that always interests me

Let’s get our definitions straight. Engagement might mean behavioural engagement: turning up, doing what’s asked, looking the part. Or emotional engagement: feeling interested, enjoying the activity, liking your teacher. Or cognitive engagement: the holy grail, which involves sustained effort, grappling with complexity, and sticking with tasks that stretch the mind.

The trouble is, we often collapse these meanings into one another. A student who looks busy is assumed to be learning. A smiling child is read as motivated. But as Dylan Wiliam reminds us, “Anyone can think up interesting and engaging activities that will occupy students in classrooms, but unfortunately such activities do not always, or even often, result in valued learning for students.”1

Are they even learning anything?! How can I tell?