Try these 10 strategies in your classroom to hook students who would rather be anywhere else.

When I got my first speeding ticket, I knew where to go for advice. Ron Diss, my charismatic colleague at Emory & Henry College, has decorated his office door with a series of nearly identical certificates. Each one declares the successful completion of a driving course. One thing he hasn’t taken from the course, apparently, is the need to drive more slowly.

I asked him what I should do. It’s a no-brainer, he said. Keep the ticket off your record. The judge will likely give you the choice to attend driving school and, in exchange, have the violation dismissed. The insurance company won’t find out about it, so your rates won’t go up.

When the judge made me exactly this offer, it wasn’t really a choice. The only pragmatic move was to attend. I had planned to take my course online.

Never go more than a few minutes without requiring students to respond to a question or say something for themselves.

If I was going to completely waste six hours of my time, I’d just as soon do it in the comfort of my home while munching popcorn. I smiled as the judge said I could attend any accredited driver improvement program — and then my smile faded as he finished — but it must be in person. No online courses were permitted. Great, I thought. This really is punishment. I pictured the in-school suspension supervisor at the high school where I taught. He marches slowly up and down the aisles with his arms crossed over his barrel chest, kicking the legs of the desks if students start to nod off. That would be me at driving school, fighting to hold my eyes open to the drone of interminable videos demonstrating how to adjust my mirrors. I was not looking forward to this.

The Guardian Angel Driving School operates out of a small airfield terminal in Abingdon, Va. The classroom has several tables, an office off to the side, and (no surprise) a TV cart. I show up with a quart of tea. My plan is to sip it for a steady caffeine high and then point to the near-empty bottle when I need to slip out for a walking break.

Eventually, there are eight of us, split evenly by gender. We go into the office one at a time to submit our paperwork. The rest of us sit quietly, not unlike waiting for a funeral service. The convivial banter spills out from the confines of the office, though. It’s small talk, but this guy is managing to spark some conversation with each of us. I’m glad when it’s my turn. The instructor, Anthony Lambert, asks me something and listens for my answer. He nods reassuringly. He moves easily — collects my money, moves papers, gets his coffee — and without hurrying, but also without waste. He’s easy to like. Maybe it’s because he’s taking time to talk with us, maybe it’s because he seems to find some personal connection to everyone, maybe it’s just because he seems happy to be here. I think that at least if I have to suffer through this, it will be with a likeable teacher.

It’s hard to say when the session started. Anthony drifted into the classroom and extended the one-on-one conversations he started in his office. Before we knew it, 90 minutes had passed, and it was time for a break. The approach to the rest of the day was just as disarming. We did watch two videos, for a total of about 40 minutes. But we started the day at 7:40 a.m. and ended at 4:20 p.m. In that time, Anthony achieved the holy grail that teachers seek. We were thrown together: strangers from all walks of life with marginal interest in his content and a strong desire to be almost anywhere else. And yet, Anthony engaged us.

I’m calling that the holy grail because everything valuable in education begins and ends with engagement. Schooling can be about many unpleasant things — compliance, stratification, control — and these don’t always require engagement. But all of the positive things promised by education — things like opportunity, excellence, and openness — are possible only when minds are turned on and tuned in.

One of the first things Anthony said was that driving school wasn’t punishment: It was just a way to refresh ourselves. That turned out to be true for me, though not necessarily in the way he intended. I got a refresher course in how to engage students. How did he do it? Anthony may have been blessed with personal charm, but he employed strategies that almost any teacher could beneficially apply, even those of us with less compelling personalities. Below is an outline of 10 of these strategies: a guide to pedagogy derived from my day at driving school.

1. Make it personal.

Ask for, and share, appropriate personal information. Anthony had a trove of anecdotes: people he knew, streets he had driven, places he had been. He found ways to relate his knowledge to that of his students. He also explained why his lessons mattered to us, like how we could save money by knowing more about insurance companies.

2. Require student interaction.

Never go more than a few minutes without requiring students to respond to a question or say something for themselves. One of the first things Anthony did was ask what we had done to get sent to driving school. The entire session, though, had ample give and take.

3. Arouse fear.

For better or worse, people respond to fear, both real and imagined. Anthony shared many examples of nasty car wrecks caused by negligence. He also made students mildly uncomfortable by arousing the fear almost anyone feels when put on the spot to answer questions. While intimidation can backfire, the tension caused by pushing students to think on their feet can also help activate attention.

4. Use humor.

Appalachia is known for its funny colloquialisms, and Anthony had plenty with which to embellish his stories. When he talked about negotiating with his wife about the kids and driving, he said, “Arguing with your wife is like trying to blow out a lightbulb.”

5. Paint a picture in words.

Anthony asked how fast we could run. Then he had us imagine running into the brick wall of the airport terminal at that speed. He also described, in languid detail, collecting the paper receipts from insurance costs and then assembling those along with salt, pepper, celery, etc., so we could make receipt soup. That way we’d have something to show for the money we’d spent.

6. Keep it in the present.

I have a pet peeve against math teachers who can give no more compelling reason for their students to pay attention than “You’ll need to know this for next year’s math class.” Teachers too often resort to using tests as the only reason to learn: “I’m going to quiz you on this at the end of class, then you’ll have a test at the end of the unit, and then you’ll get a standardized exam at the end of the year.” You’re jarring students out of the most motivating state of mind: the one that is present. Anthony taught the class without giving us any sort of agenda, not even a schedule. Heck, there wasn’t even a clock in the room.

7. Explain the consequences.

While he may not have let our minds wander too far into the future, Anthony didn’t hesitate to inform us of the potential consequences of our actions. He shared technical things, like braking distances and the effects of surface conditions on them, as well as what happens when you become enraged by other drivers or the consequences that will ensue if you panic and overcorrect when you veer off the road. Understanding consequences is at the center of responsible (and engaged) behavior.

8. Sneak important topics in through the back door.

Teachers have agendas, but they don’t always have to make that obvious. It may work better to let important lessons emerge “spontaneously.” Anthony had a knack for cultivating conversation that would just happen to come around to those things he wanted to talk about, like buckling your seat belt.

9. Explain how to make change happen.

Fatalistic attitudes cause disengagement. We have to see how we could have done things differently to find the motivation to make it happen. Anthony talked a lot about the habits we acquire and how those can change. He talked about quitting smoking, using the cruise control, calculating the small time saved by speeding, and other ways to make significant changes. Students who think they can improve will try.

10. Use catchphrases often.

At the core of Anthony’s lesson were a handful of catchphrases. He repeated them often: “We are creatures of habit. Perfect the good ones and improve on the bad ones.” And, “It only takes a second for anything to happen.” And, “It takes the average person five years to become an average driver.”

While it may seem to demean high-level learning, people need tools to help them think and remember, and an easily spoken and memorable phrase may be among the best of those tools. My favorite is one Anthony used in response to a rhetorical question: “When should you buckle your seat belt?” I like it so much that I’m going to print and post it on the office door of my colleague, Ron Diss, just below his driving school certificates and next to the question: “When should you obey the speed limit?” The response? “Every time, without exception, no matter what.”

Eric Grossman is an associate professor at the Neff Center for Teacher Education at Emory & Henry College in Emory, Va.

This article was originally published in the April 2011 issue of Phi Delta Kappan.

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