Zibby is joined by award-winning journalist Jenny Anderson and the Brookings Institution’s global education expert Rebecca Winthrop to discuss THE DISENGAGED TEEN, a ground-breaking exploration of stressed-out teens who have lost their love of learning, and what to do to support their academic and emotional success. The authors discuss systemic issues in schooling, the impact of technology, the role of emotions in learning, and the science behind how kids learn. Then, they share strategies for parents and communities to foster curiosity and problem-solving skills!

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome. 

Jenny: Thanks for having us. 

Rebecca: So lovely to be here. 

Zibby: I feel like this could maybe be me. I feel like in addition to my teens, I'm pointing to this sort of person slumped over on, on the phone and it could, could very well be me. These days. Anyway. Next is the disengaged grown up. But anyway. 

Rebecca: You're giving us ideas already.

Zibby: Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. 

Jenny: The sequel. 

Zibby: The sequel. Yes, exactly. Tell listeners about your book. What it's about, the backstory, the whole thing. 

Rebecca: So our book is about how to motivate your kids in school because a lot of kids really dislike school and we dove in to really figure out why is that and discovered a lot of interesting things about how kids show up in their learning and how.

a lot of times we think they're super engaged in school and they're not because they're bringing home good grades but they're not actually developing the skills that they will need to thrive in work or college. So that is what the book's about. Jenny, you want to add? 

Jenny: Yeah, I mean it's a lot about demystifying learning.

Learning is like a largely invisible process and so obviously when you have little kids you kind of see the wheels turning and you see everything happening and you feel like you kind of have a handle on it and go to middle school and then high school and you're you feel a little bit at sea as to what they get and don't get and what skills they're mastering around their own learning and around their own thinking, which is kind of a lot of what happens in high school.

And so it's kind of just a lot of guidance for parents on identifying how their kids are learning and some useful questions you can ask to kind of understand better that are not judgmental and not about are you getting an A and you know, are you going to get into this college or that college, but much more about the process.

Which actually then helps predict the outcomes, so it, it sort of serves that purpose, but we didn't do a very good job on the backstory. Do you want the backstory? Should we do that one too? I would love, 

Zibby: I would love the backstory. Sure, sure. And I, I read all about your own kids and how, you know, some of this comes from a personal place, which made me feel better.

So thank you for, thank you for leading with that. 

Rebecca: Yes. I mean, I, I definitely think that's one thing to, to emphasize to you, Zibby, but also to all your listeners that we are experts, but it's not like we figured it all out, because parenting is really hard. And as Jenny said, learning is hard to see. So I reached out to Jenny to write this book with me because in COVID, I realized that the kid, I have two boys, they were in sixth grade and third grade at the time COVID hit. And that I realized that the kid I thought who was super engaged in school and learning and motivated was not, and the kid who I thought was disengaged and not motivated, was.

And that was a total shock to the system for me because I'm an ed expert. I've only worked in education my whole life. How could I have missed this? And it made me realize how hard it is for parents to see that. How engaged your kids are. And I knew that how they show up to learn is just as important as what they learn in terms of being able to be successful in high school and college and work and life.

And so that was a real motivator for me. I had my older kid was bringing home all. good grades, was coasting through perfectly happy. The minute school went past fail when COVID hit and he stopped having to chase the A, he got completely demotivated and he said, it doesn't matter, mom. If it's not counted, it doesn't matter what you learn.

And that of course was a dagger to the heart as an ed expert. And he basically got lost all motivation. Couldn't get him out of bed. It was really difficult as I know many parents faced. And my little one who was struggling in school mightily with dyslexia. Blossomed. He was behind two grade levels, caught up two grade levels in COVID because he actually was super motivated.

He just needed a different learning environment. So that is when I turned it up when I reached out to Jenny. 

Jenny: Yeah. And I was excited. I had covered finance for almost 18 years, had been very deeply mired in the world of hedge funds and private equity and investment banking and really loved it. And then I had my own kids and I got really interested in kind of, learning and education and how kids learn and what they learn.

And I was surprised that education coverage was very much about politics of education. It was about charter or not charter or teacher's union. And these are super important stories, but like the actual like how kids learn and how you could help them be better learners that didn't really exist. And I found that super annoying.

And so I started carving out some of that coverage and was pleasantly surprised that there was a huge readership for it. So it wasn't that there wasn't demand for it. It was that we hadn't actually gotten around to writing it. And so, uh, when Rebecca and I was doing a lot of different things, I was doing the neuroscience of infancy.

I was doing, um, sort of teens and their phones. I was doing all of these pieces and they were all interesting, but I wanted to cohere it all around this sort of, Actual science and instead of sort of story by story, actually really try to get into the underbelly of what do I want to know as a parent? I also have two girls and they're very, very different.

And I just, I kind of find myself at sea most of the time wondering whether I'm doing it right or wrong and whether I've said the right thing and whether I'm pointing them in the right direction. And so I kind of, I write my way through problems. That's what I do. I'm a writer. I wrote a book about marriage when I first got marriage.

Um, So, uh, when I first got married and so this was like, okay, I got this big challenge in front of me. Teen years. What's the best thing to do? Write about it. 

Zibby: Totally. I should be writing about it more. Maybe that would help me. There was one chart in the beginning, which I have since like taken around and shown everyone in my family.

You have a chart, which I'm showing to them now, where basically in, There's a graph with three things next to each other, math, reading, and science, and things are kind of going along, although declining a little, and then there is a precipitous decline, like whoosh, like ski mountain style around the time that phones get invented and everybody's on social media and everybody's doing everything else, and that, you know, You know, one of your things associated with this is, well, what are we going to do in the world if, like, nobody's learning anything and no one's able to solve the complicated problems and, you know, heal and come up with cures and do all the things that are necessary in community for us as a species, essentially, to learn and thrive.

So I was, like, completely panicked about, about this chart and what it meant and have been in, like, a a mental loop about it ever since. Tell me what you felt when you got that data, because that is just terrifying news. 

Rebecca: Well, I can kick off, Jenny, because I live in the world of education, data, policy, and research.

And we've been watch, tracking this for some time, for those of us in that world. It's super concerning. Super concerning. Because as you say, education, you know, if we can't get young people engaged in learning well in school, however, whatever form that school takes it, you're not going to be preparing society to be democratic, to be thriving, to be prosperous, to be collaborative, all of those things to solve our problems.

And for us, I think there's a real puzzle as to what exactly is going on. going on. We know that kids have been deeply disengaged in school for a while, even before cell phones were invented. But several things are happening during that time period. One, they're disengaged and all of a sudden they have something way more entertaining in their pocket to take their attention.

So that's one thing. Two, they're being asked to do a lot more. So 50 years ago, really what employers were asking schools to do is produce kids who are numerate and literate to high degrees. Now employers are asking for a lot more. You definitely need to be literate and numerate, but you need to have collaborative problem solving skills.

Um, you need to have, you know, Uh, self confidence awareness. You need to have, um, deep critical thinking skills. You need to have, um, in skills that let you create novel and new ideas. So innovation and creativity skills. And so we need kids more engaged in school now than, than they were. And we also know there's.

It's a big gap between what they do in school and what the world is like, and that gap makes school seem irrelevant to them. So it's this sort of perfect storm of disinterest, lack of relevance. I don't see the point, mom. Anything I'm doing is not going to help me in the real world. And having mobile phones and social media be fabulously entertaining when what they're doing in school is not, that really is.

You know, causing some of this problem. 

Jenny: Yeah, and I'd pick up a little bit on that relevance point. One of the things that cell phones give you is this sense of exactly what's happening in the world. So instead of school being this sort of protected space, they kind of see what is a very chaotic world.

And I think there is a pervasive sense. And we heard this in our research and conversations with teens. We talked to over a hundred teens over three years and they feel deeply unprepared. Like they are so unaware, like I was so blissfully unaware of how unprepared I was. And that was such a wonderful thing, right?

I was, I was unprepared and so was everyone else and it was okay. But as Rebecca said, the world is demanding much more of us and they're more aware of it and that is I think we're focusing a lot on the connections between social media and mental health and those are important I'm glad we're having those conversations but I also think there is this pervasive sense of both helplessness like I don't think I'm being prepared for this crazy world and hopelessness which is And I don't really know what to do about it.

And I do think that that's, I mean, like, the silver lining here is parents can play a really big role here. Because, and not in like, you know, self esteem, empty, you're amazing, here's the trophy, like, everything's gonna be fine. I don't think we need to do that at all. We should be, like, very authentic and real with our kids.

But, like, yeah, you don't have that skill? Great. Like, what do we need to do to get that skill? Like, there is nothing we can't teach ourselves. I can learn alongside you what's something you care about. Let's go and do that together. This can be done. Things are possible. Skills can be built. Growth and change is always possible.

Brains are malleable. Like all of this thing, we really have to attack this sense of hopelessness and helplessness, which I think is very, very scary for young people. And it's terrifying for parents to see in their kids. 

Rebecca: Yeah. 

Zibby: You know, the book, made me think not just about what we can do as parents in helping our kids, but maybe we've totally missed the boat as a society here right now.

And maybe there's something far bigger and more systemic that we have to address. Sometimes our kids are right. Sometimes it is boring and useless. Like my, my daughter was at this class. Not to name any classes, but she, she, she really wanted to take this type of an after school class. And after like one or two, she's like, this class is boring.

I don't like it. The teachers aren't good. I promise you, I don't like it. And I was like, you committed, you're going to stay, you're going to do it. We signed up, we paid for it, whatever. And then finally it got to like parents, open house, whatever you got to come watch. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this class is terrible.

The teachers are terrible. It's really boring. They're unprepared. It is boring. She was a, no, she was a hundred percent right. And I was like, Yes. You're out of here. We're not doing this class. And I feel like that's just. An example of, like, all the teens in the book and what's going on nationwide. Like, think about if we hadn't adapted professionally in the last 10 years, right?

Everything has changed. How we do business, everything is different. But schools are mostly, aside from moving online a little bit, like, doing things the way they did, teaching the same things. Like, maybe that is not what we should be doing in schools anymore. Like, maybe there needs to be something totally different.

Jenny: We originally were going to write a school design book. We were like, what are the, what are the best schools? What are the optimal conditions for learning? And because we do actually know a lot and a lot of teachers would love more freedom to be able to do more things, but there is, we're like straight jacketed right now between like, yeah.

This accountability system and like the architecture of learning we have in place. And then parents feeling like they have to respond to that system. And like, you know, it's, everybody's kind of like, this isn't working for us. Right. This is like, this is not ideal. So like, we so hear you that there are, and we see schools, we have visited schools where.

They change, you know, they do change things and the kids are so engaged. They're so, they wouldn't want to be on their phones because they're into what they're doing. They're able to work with their peers. You know, it's noisy, it's raucous, they're doing interesting things. They're led a little bit by their interests and not just, you know, kind of sit down and listen and sit still, right?

That idea of just sit still all the time. I think that is, um, that's pretty pervasive. Sorry, Rebecca, I cut you off. 

Rebecca: Not at all. I was just going to say, I'm so glad you Picked up on that, because as you know, the end of the book is here's, you know, we have the engagement toolkit, how to help your own kids.

Zibby: Yep. 

Rebecca: But Hey, if you want to be a champion and we do need champions in every community to really shift the design of schooling, this is not a teacher problem. Teachers are doing amazing work. I think that's really important. We can't go around blaming teachers that show up every day, but we do have a design problem.

There's a lot of great organizations that are doing this, and we have a list in the book if you need inspiration, you know, go bring them, bring them to your, to your communities. So, yeah, I think I'm really glad you picked up on that. 

Jenny: But also to your point, like, the number of kids who said to us, like, Mom, when I say, or Dad, when I say this, like, nothing's happening, a lot of times nothing's happening.

Like, we really heard, and that's another sort of thing. theme in the book is like, we should be listening to the experiences of kids in their day. You know, when you think about, like, a lot of feedback in the system is a lot of grown ups talking to a lot of grown ups and very, you know, with excellent intentions and, but like, They are the ones who experience it every day, and, you know, only now in the past sort of decade have we really been super interested in the experience, and we now know the kind of emotions around learning deeply influence the actual learning itself.

So we should care. Like, we should care how kids feel. It's not suck it up and just get through it, right? Like, that shouldn't be our, our framework. 

Rebecca: Yeah. And it's, and you're right, you're right. So it'd be just to add on that. And I know you're coming in in a second, but sometimes what we found is sometimes kids say I'm bored when they're behind and they're frustrated.

They don't like it because they don't have the language, but a good half of the time they are literally bored. They're not challenged enough. And it's, if you think about the design of schooling, it's One teacher has to get a whole group of kids into their perfect sweet spot where it's neither too hard nor too easy, and that often, what we know from the data, that often leaves the kids where it's too easy just to Sitting there because teachers are trying to help the kids where it's too hard, which makes sense.

If you're the kid, if you're the parent with the kid who's struggling, you're like, this kid needs help to get up and into their, sort of, we call it the zone, you know, it's called the zone of proximal development, the sort of sweet spot of learning. And, um, a lot of kids are bored. And oftentimes we, we are not asking, letting them ask big questions about what they're learning.

We're, we're sort of missing the forest for the trees. It's a lot of, do you know this knowledge? Do you know, what does this paragraph say? How do you, rather than why did this, you know, happen or what is the point of this? Like really understand. Understanding it, some, some really pushing kids to understand it.

And then oftentimes we don't let kids take their knowledge that they're learning and try to apply it, use it to do something. I would say if I could change, change two things, those would be two big things to try 

to change.

Zibby: So, and maybe this is a waste of time, but now I've like started fantasizing about these ideal schools.

If you could design a school, like if the two of you, we were like, here, take, you know, anything you need and just like create the perfect school that would enable kids to learn and be engaged in the best way possible? Like have you found that school A and if you haven't B like what? What would be the most essential things to put in there?

Jenny: I would definitely go to Compass is where I would start. Where would you start, 

Rebecca? No, go, go. 

Rebecca: Talk about Compass. It's great. 

Jenny: No, there's, there's a group of schools in Nashville, Tennessee. Oh my God, I'm drawing a blank on the name. 

Rebecca: Valor. 

Jenny: Valor, thank you. Valor Collegiate Schools. And they have this just incredible process to help kids understand themselves as people.

Themselves as community members you sit in a circle at the beginning of a class every week and you sort of identify the emotion you have and you talk about that and you learn to recognize this these emotions and others and you learn to articulate your frustrations and your insecurities and your fears and you learn how to support each other it's done in a very kind of carefully mediated gradual development of emotional skills kind of way but what it means is that the kids Turn up able to manage themselves, manage their relationships, which is such a huge part of school, right?

Like think of middle school, like the reason it's still traumatizes all of us to this day is it was really hard when you can manage your own emotions when you can manage, you know, sort of group emotions. You can turn up for your learning in a different way. And that school has extraordinarily high expectations academically and the kids perform really, really well.

And. Um, you know, my takeaway from spending some time there, I mean, they have this sign when you walk in the door, which is be the, be the grownup you needed. And I mean, it's like, that's what they want the adults to do, to be the grownup that those kids needed, show those kids how to manage themselves and manage others.

And I think that is a piece of it that we really overlook in this sort of furious need to get content, which is also very important. Okay. Over to you, Rebecca. 

Rebecca: I would add to that. I agree with that. I think I would add, Zibby, that what we need is to give kids agency, which is really the antidote. to boredom and the antidote to disengagement.

When you give people, young people in particular, the chance to try to practice being the authors of their own lives, which is agency, and they don't just know this coming out of the womb or just watching us, they need to practice, and they need to practice in safe places. places with guardrails. It really totally changes their excitement level, their motivation level.

It also changes how well they do in school. They also get a lot better grades. And there are these schools out there. We give lots of examples in the book. They exist. They're just on the margins of the education system. They're not sort of the default way that schools are designed. So our hope is that we can get schools that can let kids, we call, we call it being an explorer mode that when, when kids, when schools give kids choices, let them, not a million choices, but you know, you want like two to five choices on what they want to do in homework, what they want to study, push them to make sure they're, they're really working on not just working hard at dumb things.

There's a lot of busy work, but really trying to push their critical thinking skills, um, and then help give them opportunities to try to work with others to put these skills in practice. It really lights kids up. They're so, kids, kids are naturally excited by good learning environments. partnered with this group, Transcend, and we found that, that kids are Less than 10 percent of kids, grades third through 12, said they had any chance to regularly be in this explorer mode in school.

So we're, we're, we're far off. So we hope to help with this book. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. 

Jenny: And I think one other thing, just to build on this a little bit, is this relevance piece that we talked about before, is opportunities to get into communities and solve real problems. Like, kids want to solve problems and, to Rebecca's point, be agentic.

They want to be They know when what they're doing is meaningless and when what they're doing is meaningful. So trying to create, and a lot of schools do this very well, either opportunities to get into the community to do kind of meaningful work with the community, solving a community problem seems to have a tremendous impact on how those kids feel about themselves and also how they then attack their learning.

Zibby: Hmm. So interesting. Okay, well then back to what parents can do because obviously we can't all change the entire system. Although I like to. Okay. 

Rebecca: You can try to change your own kids school or your schools in your community. I think parents actually have a, we will get back to what parents can do, but I just want to put a plug.

Parents have a lot more power than they think, both in their own kids lives and what they do at home. It's two times more predictive than socioeconomic status, actually. So this is open to any parent of any demographic. are demanding better quality education all over in many places, but they don't necessarily know what to look for and to ask for.

And that actually makes a huge difference in whether these, whether we can change the design of schools. So anyways, Jenny, over to you concretely. 

Zibby: And you do, you do tell us early on, like, look, parents, we know you're all really busy, too, and you can't take on the entire responsibility of, like, your children's entertainment and education, but there are things you can do.

So how can we improve our kids lives when it is what it is, essentially? 

Jenny: So one of the things we really lean into is And this was actually super surprising to me because I think I've tried really hard to not be a tiger mom. I think I have a little tiger mom instinct in me. I'm super competitive. I was a competitive athlete.

And so, like, I've tried hard to, like, check my own instincts. 

Zibby: I'm backing away from my twin. I'll wait over there on the couch. You can 

Jenny: So I've kind of always been like, you do school and we'll do family. And I think this idea of really talking to them about the content of their learning in school was revelatory to me because it's not, how did you do in school and what grades did you get?

And are you in a fight with this person? Like, it's like not monitoring, not surveilling, but just trying to get a little bit, and you have to be really creative about this, especially with teenagers, because like, they're not going to tell you what they're doing. So figure it out and then plant some really good seeds and start having some really good conversations You really want to be connected to your teenagers, and this is a really good way.

Like, what are you doing, and what are you learning? And then you find out something. Literally, chat GPT. You don't have to know anything. Like, go to chat GPT, find out a few things about the thing that they're doing, and then have a conversation about it. And it's exciting. Like, and they get from that. If you think about what the sort of signal is, the signal is what you do all day long, is worthwhile.

I am asking about it. I want to know more about that. So that was actually kind of surprising to me because I think I've tried to tiptoe away from that to not be sort of like that parent, right? Rebecca, do you want to go give a couple other tangible? 

Rebecca: Yeah, totally. Well, first I would say that one of the things that parents can take away from this book is being able to see what engage, student motivation engagement looks like.

Like we, we kind of know it, but we found out that actually it's kind of hard to see a lot of it. So we developed these four, uh, modes of engagement. So you've got passengers who are basically coasting along doing the bare minimum. That's actually most kids in middle school and high school. You've got achievers who look great, who we all think are rocking it because they're trying to get top grades.

They do get top grades. Captain of the sports teams, etc. They're going for it. They're locked in. But we did find that this group of kids has really difficult mental health problems because often they try to be perfect rather than just excellent. And no one can be perfect. And they are fragile learners actually.

So when they fail at something, they kind of fall apart, which is not a skill we need them to have when they leave our nest. Then you've got kind of the resistor mode kids who are your problem, typical problem children, disrupting, avoiding, skipping school, not doing homework. So that one we see, but they actually have, A lot of agency, believe it or not, they are telling you in whichever way they can, often inappropriately, that this school thing ain't working for them.

And we found that if you can switch their environment, these kids take off. They are not lost causes. Do not give up on them. Just find a way to start over. Switch their learning environment into Explorer mode and I would say that is the Explorer mode is where kids are motivated and excited to learn and they have some opportunity and freedom to choose.

So they're sort of practicing these being the author of their own life skills and those kids when they get there. Get that opportunity. They get better grades, they're happier, and they're learning the skills they need to navigate a world of AI. So it's the good trifecta you want. And so you can, kids can develop these explore muscles, these explore skills in school, but they can also develop them outside of school.

So if they're not like I, one of my sons, I shall not name names for protection of the school. But, you know, he was like, yeah, I don't really get to be in explorer mode in school. Fine. Not, you know, do your best in school and let's give you lots of opportunities outside school because you can in extracurricular activities at home through churches, whatever, community service, you can develop those Explorer skills.

So I would say one of the really important things is, is to help those help your kids develop that agency and Explorer mode because they're going to need it when they leave. 

Jenny: Would it be helpful, Zibby, to do like a very quick what to do with each of those, like one bit of advice for each of those modes?

Zibby: Yes, one piece of advice. Okay, super quick. Quick piece of advice for each mode. Yes. 

Jenny: Okay, so passengers, these are the ones who are coasting. Like, we all want to not nag these kids because they're driving us completely crazy because they won't do the thing they're meant to do. And you know that if you don't nag them, they're not going to do it.

Fascinating brain research shows that when you nag, the part of their brain that actually activates problem solving shuts down. So nagging does not work. You're going to have to find a better way. So not nagging. We actually argue in the book that giving those kids a little bit more autonomy to try and fail is better than actually nagging them.

Um, achievers. These kids need to take more risks. As Rebecca said, they're very fragile, and so it's getting them out of there instead. It's really hard to stop a kid who is succeeding on all fronts and say, take a little bit of a detour because that detour could, you know, put the 4. 0 or the 4. 2 or the 4.

8 or whatever number we're at these days. That is actually the skill that's going to serve them the best. Take a little risk, not a huge risk, and I'm saying like, you know, homeschool these kids, but like, Take a small risk and see and start to build up their confidence that they can do things other than just jump through every hoop that's been put in front of them.

Resisters is very much about getting to the why. So these kids often seem like the problem children. They're not problem children. They're children with problems. And instead of sort of like, Clamping down on them, really try to get side by side with them and figure out what's going on, because, as Rebecca said, you can really turn those, those kids around super quickly when you just sort of understand what it is, what's the big impediment.

Zibby: Okay, so I'm armed with tools for no matter what happens. In my head, I'm drafting a note to, like, my kids various schools and thinking, how can they also solve real world problems in the course of their day and feel impactful? And, you know, some of them are, some of your suggestions are easily implemented if you just know why they're important.

Anyway, I assume you're going to go around and talk to a zillion schools. Is that the plan? 

Rebecca: That's the hope. 

Jenny: Hope so. 

Rebecca: We'd be happy to come to talk to your kids schools. 

Zibby: Okay. 

I will. 

Jenny: Yeah, it'd be fun to talk to schools, but also to organizations. We're talking to organizations as well because, you know, parents who are struggling with parenting, you know, sometimes struggle to turn up in the way that they want at work.

And so there was also just a nice element of like, I think if we feel a little bit better in our parenting, maybe we will be a little bit more focused on our work. So that's another. area for focus, but schools are definitely our sweet spot. 

Zibby: Well, if I were running the government, I would put you guys as head of education and let you do your thing.

So. 

Jenny: Well, we can take this into an interesting direction. Yeah, no, no, no commentary on, uh, on the current political situation. 

Zibby: No, I'm just saying in the fantasy world where anything can happen. 

Rebecca: Yes, that we exist. We appreciate the vote of confidence. 

Zibby: Thank you. Yes, you have my vote. Well, thank you so much. I found this so interesting and thought provoking, and I'm sure other parents and educators and concerned loved ones and just societal hopefuls will as well.

So, um, so thank you so much. 

Rebecca: Thank you so much. 

Zibby: Okay. Take care.