I'm a middle school teacher. I try to create engaging, interesting lessons for a clear path for why things are worthwhile. I also only teach what many students consider "fun stuff": robotics, "How to Make Almost Anything," etc. My programs and classes have done pretty well in the past on metrics of engagement, learning, student satisfaction, etc-- partially because of the cheat code of having material that's pretty intrinsically interesting.

There is still a pretty big subset of students that without the threat of enforcement or bad grades leading to parental action, will do almost nothing. It's especially visible now with some of my students being remote-- it's a constant battle to avoid previously engaged, excited, and interested students from just popping a Fortnite window open and escaping the class discussion.

I can make 75% of my class time fun; I can make it pretty obvious why the skills we practice are extremely valuable stuff in both the near term and the long term whether or not they decide to be an engineer one day. But I can't make every minute of class time more immediately rewarding than playing Fortnite.