In short
Podcast Episode Summary: What Fresh Hell - DEEP DIVE: Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop, "The Disengaged Teen"
Episode Overview
In this episode of *What Fresh Hell
Laughing in the Face of Motherhood*, hosts Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables engage Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop, authors of *The Disengaged Teen*. They discuss the challenges of teenage disengagement from education, exploring the causes, implications, and strategies for parents to encourage engagement in their children as they transition into higher education levels.
Key Themes and Discussions
The Teen Disengagement Crisis
- Concept of Disengagement: The episode focuses on what Anderson and Winthrop refer to as the "teen disengagement crisis," emphasizing that disengagement is not a natural state for teens, but rather a common issue faced due to design flaws in the education system.
- Different Modes of Learning: The authors introduce the idea that teens engage in various modes of learning, affecting their academic performance and interest in school.
Understanding Engagement
- Definition of Engagement:
- Engagement encompasses three primary dimensions:
- Behavioral: What students do in the classroom.
- Affective/Emotional: How students feel about their learning.
- Cognitive: The ways students think about and process information.
- Disengagement Factors:
- Emotions play a critical role in student engagement. A lack of connection to learning materials or feelings of inadequacy can lead to disengagement.
- The authors argue that traditional schooling often fails to cater to the natural curiosity and exploration instincts inherent in adolescents.
Modes of Engagement The discussion highlights four distinct modes of student engagement:
- Resistor Mode:
- Characteristics: Students in this mode are often seen as troublemakers or disengaged, acting out or avoiding schoolwork.
- Implication: They may not feel a sense of belonging or see relevance in their education.
- Opportunity: Parents can redirect this energy towards learning by understanding the underlying needs of these students.
- Achiever Mode:
- Characteristics: High-performing students focused on grades and external validation, often at the expense of personal interests.
- Implication: This mode can lead to fragility and mental health challenges due to pressure and burnout.
- Opportunity: Promotion of self-awareness and intrinsic motivation rather than just achievement.
- Passenger Mode:
- Characteristics: Students coasting through school, completing assignments without engagement.
- Implication: They may lack the skills needed for independent learning and critical thinking.
- Opportunity: Encourage exploration and agency, especially in subjects they enjoy.
- Explorer Mode:
- Characteristics: The ideal mode where students actively seek knowledge and pursue interests.
- Implication: Students in this mode demonstrate motivation, excitement about learning, and higher academic performance.
- Opportunity: Foster environments both in and out of school that encourage exploration and self-directed learning.
Practical Strategies for Parents
- Modeling Curiosity: Parents should engage in discussions about subjects their children are learning, reinforcing the importance of inquiry and critical thinking.
- Ask Better Questions: Shift from generic "How was school?" to open-ended questions related to specific subjects or activities.
- Create Space for Exploration: Allow children to pursue interests, even if they seem trivial, to develop their engagement and learning muscles.
- Leverage Interests: Use children's interests as a springboard to connect academic content to the real world, enhancing relevance and engagement.
Conclusion The episode concludes with a strong emphasis on the importance of understanding and navigating the various engagement modes that students operate within. By fostering a supportive environment that encourages exploration and authentic learning, parents can significantly impact their children's educational journey and overall well-being.
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Additional Resources For more information on Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop's work, visit:
- [Jenny Anderson's Website](http://www.jennywestanderson.org)
- [Rebecca Winthrop's Website](http://www.rebeccawinthrop.com)
- [The Disengaged Teen](http://www.thedisengagedteen.com)
Episode Links
- [What Fresh Hell Podcast](https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com)
- [Purchase *The Disengaged Teen*](https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9780593727072)
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This Markdown summary presents a structured overview of the episode, highlighting key discussions, themes, and practical advice for parents navigating the complexities of adolescent education and engagement.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Birth of a Book Idea
1:17 to 3:00
Rebecca shares her insights into her son's disengagement during COVID and the resulting collaboration with Jenny.
“You two have these really interesting bios.”
Understanding Engagement in Learning
3:00 to 6:30
The hosts discuss the dimensions of engagement and its importance to learning.
“And I just know how important, how engaged kids are in their learning is.”
Disengagement: A Common Challenge
6:30 to 8:00
The conversation continues on why disengagement seems typical among teenagers and the biological imperatives involved.
“And so a kid is pulling back from their learning and not leaning in.”
Exploring Agency and Learning
8:00 to 11:20
Jenny and Rebecca elaborate on how freedom and agency in learning can combat disengagement.
“And Rebecca, I actually really like your answer, too.”
Challenging Educational Practices
11:20 to 14:02
The hosts critique the education system's focus on low-level analysis rather than higher-order thinking.
“But like they know so much more about the world and what they're doing doesn't feel connected to that.”
The Importance of Higher Order Thinking
14:02 to 14:40
Explore how engaging students with challenging concepts enhances learning.
“questions we often miss, and that is higher order thinking.”
Understanding Resistor Mode in Teens
18:33 to 19:49
Delve into the characteristics and challenges of teens in resistor mode.
“So the book centers on these four modes of engagement.”
The Need for Belonging in Students
19:49 to 20:38
Learn how feelings of belonging impact student engagement and behavior.
“And they're very excited about other things outside of school.”
Reflections on Resistor Mode
20:38 to 22:26
Examine personal experiences with resistor mode and its implications.
“So that's really what resistor mode is all about.”
Achiever Mode: Pros and Cons
22:26 to 25:09
Discuss the positive traits and potential drawbacks of achiever mode in students.
“And IQ, which is a great predictor of how kids do in school, was developed.”
Show all 18 chapters
Passenger Mode and Its Implications
25:09 to 28:00
Explore the characteristics of passenger mode and its effects on learning.
“But there is just this at what cost and making sure that kids have...”
Understanding Teen Engagement
28:00 to 30:40
Discussing the challenges teens face with academic pressures and the importance of maintaining balance.
“My oldest son goes to a pretty intense academic STEM-oriented high school, which he loves.”
The Role of Explorer Mode in Learning
30:40 to 31:54
Exploring the concept of Explorer Mode and its significance in fostering proactive learning in teens.
“Parents, if you see your kids struggling with reading and wonder what you could do to support them, you're not alone.”
Fostering Agency and Autonomy in Teens
33:37 to 36:54
Emphasizing the importance of giving teens freedom to explore their interests to improve their motivation and learning outcomes.
“Kids who are in explore mode really have this proactivity around their learning.”
Creating Supportive Learning Environments
36:54 to 42:00
Discussing how parents can support their children's learning through conversation and understanding during adolescence.
“I mean, one thing is to, you know, have one bad class, but if they're sort of stuck for a while, parents and schools will start taking away their freedom.”
Supporting Teen Development Through Active Engagement
42:00 to 44:35
Learn how to foster adolescent brain development by engaging with their interests.
“No, that is actually, there's something going on there.”
Modeling Curiosity and Learning
44:35 to 48:28
Discover the importance of modeling curiosity and vulnerability in learning moments.
“And, you know, my son is learning right now about Democratic Republicans.”
Book Recommendations and Resources
48:28 to 49:38
Find out more about 'The Disengaged Teen' and how to access additional resources.
“I have been talking to Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:01Jenny Anderson:At DSW, we ask the important questions like what shoes are you going to wear? Whether you're prepping for wedding season, festival season, or just planning the ultimate vacay, the right shoes can make or break an RSVP. So own the moment. You've got big plans and we've got just the shoes at the perfect price, of course.
0:21Rebecca Winthrop:Get ready to get ready with Designer Shoe Warehouse. Head to your DSW store or DSW.com today and let us surprise you.
0:32Jenny Anderson:Hello, and welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell? Laughing in the Face of Motherhood. This is Margaret, and today I am talking to Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop. Jenny Anderson is an award-winning journalist, author, and speaker with more than 25 years of experience. Her work has appeared in some of the world's leading publications, including the New York Times, where she was on staff for 10 years. Rebecca Winthrop is a leading global authority on education. She is the director of the Center for Universal Education at Brookings and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Today, we are talking about their new book, The Disengaged Teen, Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better, just released.
1:14Jenny Anderson:Welcome, Jenny and Rebecca. Thanks for having us. Oh, wow. We did that in unison.
1:19Rebecca Winthrop:We've been practicing. Next time, harmony, please.
1:23Jenny Anderson:Yes. C-flat. You two have these really interesting bios. How did you find each other to come together to write this book?
1:32Rebecca Winthrop:So I have worked in education for 30 years, and I was perplexed and shocked during COVID when I found that my two boys were not as engaged as I thought they were. I had one in sixth grade, one in third grade. And my sixth grader was the sort of straight A student, loved school, jumped out of bed in the morning, never seemed to work that hard. And the minute school went past fail, and there was not the chance of getting an A, he lost all motivation. And I said, you got, you know, it's online, you still have to learn this stuff. Of course, you know, dagger to the heart. Learning is important. He's gotten this around the dinner table his whole life.
2:16Rebecca Winthrop:And he told me, mom, it's not counted. So it doesn't matter. And what I realized is he was really into full on achiever mode, collecting the A's, but not into learning, pretty disengaged in actually learning. And my little one was really struggling in school. He was in third grade. He'd just been diagnosed with dyslexia and was two grade levels behind and was not able to keep up, had internalized this idea that he was not smart and had really stopped trying. And I thought he was totally disengaged, but you get a different learning environment where he's not having to keep pace with his peers. He can keep his own pace, totally motivated, leaned in, was like at it every morning and caught up to grade levels.
3:00And I just know how important, how engaged kids are in their learning is.
3:06Rebecca Winthrop:And it's very hard to see. And I thought, if I can't see it, how can other parents see it? And I went looking for my most favored, favorite education journalist, Jenny, had to have a couple goes before she said yes to me to see if we would write a book. So Jenny, why did you say yes? After I said no a few times, I said yes. So I had been, Margaret, I think you know this, I covered finance for over 15 years, and I loved it. And it was fascinating. And it was hedge funds, private equity, financial crisis, you know, it was just go, go, go. And then I had kids and I was really interested in how they learn.
3:41Rebecca Winthrop:And I wanted to understand more about sort of education itself. And I'd always had this sort of, in the back of my mind, one day I'll be an education reporter. And I thought, okay, well, you know, maybe this is my moment. And I looked out and I looked around and there wasn't a lot of great, there was a lot of coverage about the politics of education, charter schools or not charter schools, teachers unions, which is important, But there was nothing on the intersection of child development, the science of learning and development and the education systems we have. And so this idea of like, how do I support my kid to learn better, which was what I wanted to do, I didn't see.
4:14Rebecca Winthrop:And so when Rebecca came along, I started doing this coverage a little bit at a place called Quartz. I left The New York Times and I joined Quartz and they helped me carve out some of that space. but Rebecca really wanted to kind of elevate it and synthesize it and do something that honestly hadn't really been done, which is synthesize a ton of different motivation literatures around what parents need in the moment that their kid is struggling in school.
4:37Jenny Anderson:Yes. And deep behind the scenes cut for the audience, Jenny's brother married my cousin. So we are practically family. We are. We've been at a few events together. Very much a few events together. So let's talk about this concept of engagement. We like to always start by kind of defining the problem, asking, is this a problem? So I understand the word engagement generally, but how are we applying it to, in this case, teenagers?
5:04Rebecca Winthrop:So how engaged a kid is, is how they approach their learning in school. It's how they learn versus what they learn. And it has a couple of dimensions. It's what kids do. It's what they feel about school. It's what they think, how they're thinking, and it's what they proactively initiate around improving their learning environment. That is sort of the highest level description of what engagement actually is.
5:29Jenny Anderson:And then Jenny, walk us through the flip side, which is of course disengagement, which the book focuses on.
5:36Rebecca Winthrop:When how you act and think and feel contribute to turning you off to learning, to disengaging from learning. So I would just build on what Rebecca said and to answer your question. I think we've really overlooked the influence of emotions in learning, sort of how kids feel about their learning and in the place of learning and among their peers as a learner. That really has an incredibly important influence on how kids learn and what they learn. And it's not a sort of nice to have, it is a must have. And that is one of the three pillars that Rebecca just lined up. There's the behavioral, which is how kids act.
6:12Rebecca Winthrop:There's the affective or emotional. That's how they feel about their learning. And then there's the cognitive, which is the thinking piece of it. Are they doing this sort of deep thinking? Are they leaning in when things get hard? Are they thinking about the stuff after the fact or during the fact? And so disengagement is when one or two or all three of those pieces are not working.
6:30Jenny Anderson:And so a kid is pulling back from their learning and not leaning in. And when I see the title of the book, The Disengaged Teen, I mean, an image immediately pops to mind. Is disengagement kind of a natural state for teenagers? I ask as the mother of two teens who sometimes seem at a burgeoning, a late tween who's about to be a teen. Is disengagement, we sometimes say, a biological imperative? Why do we picture this disengaged teen so easily?
6:57Rebecca Winthrop:I would say, and Jenny, you should add on that it is not at all natural, though it is very typical. And it is not natural because actually kids are hardwired to learn as are humans. And there's two massive peaks, early childhood and adolescence. And so when kids enter adolescence, middle school, high school, they are hardwired to explore, to find meaning, to seek out new experiences, to learn new things, to connect to different people, to really start understanding their world. So it's actually an incredible feat. And I say this as an educator, that we managed to overwhelm and bore our kids when they hit adolescence with school at the same time.
7:39Rebecca Winthrop:Like if you could design something to sort of squash someone's natural tendencies, this is it. It would be the American high school. Yeah. So it's typical. And everybody says, oh, yeah, the disengaged teen, which is part of why we that was the title, because it's such a gestalt. It's a thing. Movies are made about it. But it's not natural. And it's not really teacher's fault. It's a design problem. And I would definitely add to that. By the way, I love that question. That is such a great question. And Rebecca, I actually really like your answer, too. But I also think there is the, from a parent standpoint, you have to put this side by side with the neurobiological changes of teens, which is they are pulling away from us.
8:19Rebecca Winthrop:So they seem less engaged with us. And that is as it should be. Right. Right. Because they're sort of the developmental challenge of adolescence is to find a mate, pull away from your family, be independent and sort of leave the nest. And so to do that, part of what Rebecca is talking about being so wired for learning is because they have to go find their new tribe. They literally have to scan the Savannah and be like, I want you. I want you. Like, I want to be part of this. And to do that, they have to contribute something to see what they're worth and who's going to have them. And that's the piece where schools, I think, and as Rebecca said, by design and not by intent of teachers, fail because they need opportunities to explore who they are in these groups and kind of be more active in their learning.
9:06Rebecca Winthrop:So at no point in this book do we say, like, they shouldn't learn math. Of course they should learn math. And of course they should be in school.
9:12Jenny Anderson:My teen would pay a lot for a book that says you don't have to learn math. So that should maybe be something you consider.
9:19Rebecca Winthrop:I'm afraid we're not the guests for that. But anyway, so I do think there's the, so they do pull away from us. So the disengagement from us is very different from disengagement from learning. And we have been in a lot of schools where teenagers were very engaged. So we've seen it. We know it exists.
9:32Jenny Anderson:Yeah. And I think it's a useful kind of paradigm shift that the biological imperative is exploration. That like we've talked before, this was forever ago, but Sean White, who's an Olympian snowboarder. He is an interview with his parents and they said he wouldn't stop basically jumping off the roof of their house. And they tried all these things together to stop jumping off the roof. And then finally, they just put a bunch of mattresses down because his instinct to explore was so strong that the only solution was mattresses. There was no solution that involved not jumping off the house. But I think sometimes when we look at our teens, we see like, why can't you just sit still and learn and get really engaged in algebra and trigonometry.
10:17Jenny Anderson:But it's possible, it's the fish trying to ride a bicycle problem that if we're thinking the biological imperative is sullenness, that's really a symptom of the real biological imperative that's being kind of squashed. Correct. And when kids say, you hear a lot, I hear it from my kids, I'm sure you
10:36Rebecca Winthrop:hear it from your kids, school's boring, this is boring, this class is boring. What they're really saying, it could be a mix of things, but often what they're really saying is I have no freedom to pursue what's interesting about this lesson or topic during school hours. And so we have a great line in the book that boredom is a crisis of agency rather than there's something wrong with the kid. Yes. The natural state of learning. And sometimes they are, and Rebecca, I think you were going to add this, but sometimes they are literally just bored with the content. And that is also They're like legit.
11:09Rebecca Winthrop:We haven't done a great job of connecting, always connecting what's happening in classrooms to the real world. And it's definitely something we'll probably get to this later. But like a lot of the advice is that's the role we can play. But like they know so much more about the world and what they're doing doesn't feel connected to that. And so there has to just be more of an effort on our part, the part of schools and sort of curriculum design to connect those two things.
11:32Jenny Anderson:So it feels worthwhile while they're there. It's worth clicking on that now, although we don't want to jump ahead to solutions. This idea, that's what I hear so much from my teens right now. Where am I ever going to need this? You know, why do I need to know who fought in the war of 1812 when I want to play guitar in a band? And that disconnection is some of the, it does feel to me like some of that is just natural delayed gratification. We can't make every lesson, right? Like, well, actually, I mean, I find myself now as a person who grew up wanting to do comedy and being a comedian, doing a ton of math in my actual job.
12:13Jenny Anderson:And so it does seem like that is part of the problem. But is it an inherent part of the problem that you have to just kind of trust us a little bit that some of this is just learning?
12:24Rebecca Winthrop:Yeah. And it's a point that we make over and over again in the book. Sorry, Rebecca, I didn't mean to cut you off. But like at no point are we saying like education should be entertaining and you should feel really good about what you do all day, every day. Learning is super hard. It will be hard and it will not be enjoyable all the time. And that is totally fine. If we do too much of that, we're going to lose the kids. So like there just has to be a better balance of having some agency, right? Some kind of architecting of their own lives so that, by the way, they then have those skills in the future.
12:53Rebecca Winthrop:Right. That's where they're feeling unprepared because everything's being done to them and they want to do some stuff. And again, not like choose your own adventure. That is not what we advocate in this book. We believe in schools. We believe in teachers. We believe in expertise, like all of those things. Unapologetically in this moment, let's say that like we believe in teachers as experts, pedagogical experts. They know what they're doing and content experts and kids still need a little bit more agency in the classroom. I want to double click on that, Margaret, because, and Jenny alluded to it earlier, part of the problem is that we, in many school systems, in many schools, have low expectations of what kids can do.
13:33Rebecca Winthrop:And so kids are very busy analyzing the trees and miss the forest. So eighth grade history standards, here's the Declaration of Human Rights after World War II. What does this paragraph mean? Who wrote it? Tell me the components of it and miss the, hey, what just happened in the world that you think we might need a Declaration of Human Rights? Why is this good? So the why question, the big questions, the meaning making questions we often miss, and that is higher order thinking. And kids love that. So we say you don't need jelly beans and rainbows and sunshine to make a classroom engaging. You need to challenge kids and believe that they can really grasp big topics.
14:18Rebecca Winthrop:And they're often missing a lot of this sort of higher order meaning making pattern spotting, putting the pieces of the puzzle together because they're very busy because a lot of our curriculum standards don't push them enough. Putting things in boxes and learning algorithms. Right.
14:35Jenny Anderson:And missing the excitement of the big question.
14:37Rebecca Winthrop:Yes, kids get very excited by big ideas.
14:40Jenny Anderson:Yes, I am talking to Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop. They are the authors of The Disengaged Teen, and we will be right back to talk about the four modes of engagement. I take really good care of my skin, or I should say I try to, but what goes inside your body
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Read the full transcript
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17:54Jenny Anderson:So I kind of hit my knees, my elbows, my décolletage, and then you smell good before bed too. Yeah. Love it. Osea's Dream Bioretinol Body Serum reduces visible effects of stress on skin, improves elasticity, and delivers softer, smoother, and more radiant skin by morning. Give your skin a rest with clean, clinically tested skincare from Osea. Right now, we have a special discount just for our listeners. Get 10 % off your first order site-wide with the code FRESH at oseamalibu.com. That's O-S-E-A malibu dot com. So the book centers on these four modes of engagement. This really lit me up. I was like, oh, yes, I know I got to put everybody.
18:42Jenny Anderson:And it's not really, they're not descriptions of people. They're descriptions of the way that students engage, which I think is very important because I have a tendency with myself to be like, I'm the resistor. I get it. I'm the resistor. That's how I operate. But kids can operate in different modes depending on the circumstances. So let's go through the four modes of engagement, starting with my specialty as when I was in high school, resistor. mode.
19:10Rebecca Winthrop:All right. Resistor mode is the classic quote unquote problem child that teachers think about and parents, we all know who they are. They may be in class, but talking with their neighbor, they may be the class clown. They may be taking long breaks to go to the restroom to avoid having to listen to the boring lecture. They may start skipping school. They may not do their homework. And then it does, it can get much darker. They may start getting very behind, they may feel bad about themselves, they may stop trying, they may be chronically absent, they may leave school, and they may have a range of mental health problems.
19:48Rebecca Winthrop:So that's sort of the constellation of things that we see. In terms of what's going on inside, I mean, it'd be interesting to hear your perspective, Margaret, before we turn it over to Jenny to add, you know, oftentimes, kids do not feel they belong, They do not see the relevance of what they're doing and have any sort of spark in school. And they're very excited about other things outside of school. And oftentimes they have a lot of get up and go and gumption and oomph. And really what they are is using their voice to say, this isn't working for me. I need something different. And it comes out inappropriately.
20:24Rebecca Winthrop:Often we have a great quote from a student who was total resistor mode for a long time and said, I didn't have the words. So it came out in anger. If I'd had the words, I would have said, I need a different learning environment. So that's really what resistor mode is all about. And the exciting thing about resistor mode, and I've talked to quite a few parents about this, is those kids, as Rebecca said, have agency. And again, curious if this was your experience, Margaret, but they just need it pointed in the right direction. It's pointed away from learning. If you can get it pointed toward learning, they're in great shape.
20:57Rebecca Winthrop:Because when we get to the other modes, the next two modes before we get to explore don't have a lot of agency. The agency is just not being used constructively. You have a lot to work with. You have a lot to work with because that kid is letting you know, which is very different from withdrawing or coasting or just sort of hitting it out of the park, but not really looking too hard at what you're doing. So I'm fast forwarding to the other modes. I shouldn't be doing that.
21:20Jenny Anderson:Yeah. I, in high school, came from a very high achieving family with four kids, three of whom were extremely academically gifted and oriented to school. And I was the one who was not. And I think we've talked a lot about defining ourselves in opposition to what's going on in our families. That was a big part of my childhood, I think, was saying, I'm not like these people. I'm different. I'm unique. I'm not going to just walk the line like these boring soldiers. I'm going to be creative and artsy. And that it came out very much as anti-school. School was my place where I could say, I'm not like you people.
21:57Jenny Anderson:And I was very kind of obsessed with fairness and you're judging people by the wrong, shallow standards. And I reject all of your values. That was kind of how I fought my way through high school. And it wasn't pleasant for my parents, I will say. But when I read about resistor mode, I was like, oh, yes, this seems quite familiar. This feels very familiar.
22:19Rebecca Winthrop:Seems right. And Margaret, indeed, we would, Jenny and I would say, you were right in high school. Actually, high school does assess kids on a pretty narrow set of competencies and skills. And IQ, which is a great predictor of how kids do in school, was developed. IQ test was developed to see which kids are going to do well in school and which aren't. It wasn't developed to be the end-all be-all of your ability to contribute to society. So it is a very narrow measure that most schools are using, even though you talk to any teacher and they would love to educate much more broadly to bring every kid's strength.
22:57Jenny Anderson:And this brings me to my nemesis in high school, achiever mode, people.
23:04Rebecca Winthrop:AKA your three other siblings. I can take that one. I was the person you hated.
23:11Jenny Anderson:If Amy was here, she was full. It's funny because we have all these conversations. She was full achiever mode all the time.
23:19Rebecca Winthrop:So, I mean, you've probably figured this out, but achiever mode on paper is the one everybody loves, right? Teachers love it. Parents love it. Everybody feels good. These are the kids who get the gold stars. They work really hard. Every hoop you put, they jump through and they want to figure out how to get higher and further and do it better and satisfy the expectations of whatever system is given to them. And some of that is obviously great. You're developing good learning habits. Achiever mode kids often have excellent sort of study habits and skills and they do work hard. The problem becomes they are often very fragile.
23:53Jenny Anderson:They are fragile learners and they can... I loved this. I put a big note, fragility, because that's right. And this was definitely me, by the way.
24:01Rebecca Winthrop:It was like, just as long as I'm getting the gold stars, like keep running, keep running, just don't look down, don't look over, don't like... These kids often aren't asking themselves what they care about, why they're doing what they're doing, where they want to go. So as you get older, people are putting up hoops for you to jump through. You're having to say, this is the hoop I want to get through, or, you know, navigate your way through college or turn up to class when you don't have a parent who's yelling at you to get out of bed or put away the phone because your parent isn't like locking it in a lockbox, right?
24:27Rebecca Winthrop:So it's knowing yourself, having a little bit more self-awareness and confidence to take risks. And so our, yeah, so the big thing with achievers is they really do have alarming mental health stats. So whereas most people don't want to mess with a good thing, don't mess with those achievers or getting the A's or going to get to the good colleges, like at what cost? And sometimes it's all good. You know, we don't want to sort of say if your kid is doing well, you've got a problem. Not the message at all. Right. If your kid is doing well and never sleeping and kind of collapses when the smallest thing doesn't go right, or it's 99 and not 100.
25:02Rebecca Winthrop:Lisa DeMoor has this beautiful line, the difference between a 91 and a 98 is the life. You know, she's still saying get the 91, obviously. And we can debate whether that's the right approach. But there is just this at what cost and making sure that kids have... Anyways, we'll get to the...
25:16Jenny Anderson:And we often say, you don't necessarily need to fix the problem, but just look at it. Just examine it. My husband is a super achiever mode guy. And this week, he was falling asleep. He'd been on an international flight and was incredibly jet lagged. And he kept falling asleep. No, I'm not tired. I'm not tired. I You're not in a competition with people who nap. It's just okay to rest when you're tired. And I think that it's not that you need to make your achiever resistor or you need to change the mode. It's just acknowledging the mode so that you know everybody has an operating system. And knowing your operating system puts you in much more control of your life.
26:00Jenny Anderson:It's not that you need to dismantle every single thing about your kid, but to say like, oh, achiever mode has all these good things, but are we really too stressed? Are we not resting because we have something to prove to an invisible no one who doesn't exist?
26:14Rebecca Winthrop:Yeah. I love that you said that, Margaret, and you sort of alluded to this when you introduced the modes. The modes are not identities, right? The goal, one of the key goals of the book is these are modes. Kids move through them all the time, and sometimes they get stuck in a mode, and when they get stuck in the mode, that's when the mode becomes an identity, and that's the problem. But most of the time, it's not a problem. And why we're giving parents this language around the modes is to help them move into the modes. With your husband, you're like, be a passenger. Exactly. Just chill and coast a bit.
26:42Rebecca Winthrop:It's okay. When you're driving, you do not stay in the fast lane the entire time, right?
26:48Jenny Anderson:I mean, my husband does.
26:49Rebecca Winthrop:Yes, I understand your point, theoretically. Okay. But traffic comes, you need to weave and dodge. You might need to take a back road. Anyways, You need to like the key to a happy life is probably knowing the mode for the moment, right? Like I can employ passenger mode now. It's exams. It is full blown achiever mode moment. Like, let's go game on, right? We can do this. And always finding explorers, explore mode moments.
27:12Jenny Anderson:Let's talk about passenger mode, which you reference, which you call the original quiet quitting, which I really enjoyed.
27:18Rebecca Winthrop:Passenger mode is the kid who's coasting. They're showing up, they're doing school and they're attending and they're turning in their homework. Often they whip through it as fast as they possibly can. They don't put a lot of thought into it. And they might like school to see their friends. They might not be super excited about what they're learning. So a lot of times I think about passenger mode as having dropped out of learning, but still in school. And this is actually most kids have school experiences that they say sort of inspires passenger mode, kind of meh. And sometimes as we just talked about achiever mode.
27:57Rebecca Winthrop:Sometimes you want kids to be in passenger mode. If you've got a kid who is overstressed, has a bunch of APs. My oldest son goes to a pretty intense academic STEM-oriented high school, which he loves. He's a big science buff. He's got all these AP classes. And I kept saying, stop taking all APs. And he can't. It's required. He's just gone through. There's no other courses to take. So it's like, okay, why don't you try to be a passenger in this course? Because you can't kill yourself. You still need to go to bed. I still have a very strict bedtime, even though he's 16. I maintain we're digressing is the key to what he's doing well.
28:38Rebecca Winthrop:So sometimes it's okay to coast, but what kids are giving up if they get stuck in passenger mode or they're there most of the time is they really aren't developing the learning to learn muscles. They're not developing the study habits. They're not developing sort of this intrinsic motivation to go after and proactively seek out things that they're very interested in. And that is very worrisome, especially in an age of AI when they leave our nest and they're in college or in their own work or whatever. They have got to be self-starters and they have got to learn to navigate this world that is coming down the pipe.
29:14Jenny Anderson:And Jenny, talk a little bit about the zone of proximal development. I love this term.
29:19Rebecca Winthrop:I love this term so much. So this was a Soviet psychologist named Lev Vygotsky invented this term. And it is literally the learning sweet spot. It is when things are not too hard that you give up or too easy that you are bored to tears. You're in the zone. And it typically means that there's someone who is helping you, someone or something, right? It could be a chat to PT. It could be a video. It could be a teacher that is stretching you beyond your zone of proximal development, but you are in that learning sweet spot. And so a lot of kids end up in passenger mode because they are above or below their ZPD, right?
29:54Rebecca Winthrop:They are overwhelmed. And so they check out because definitely worse to try than to try and fail or it's too easy and they're just bored to tears. And so they check out. And we have a lot of examples of kids in the book who are just, they're very conscious of why they're making the decisions. You know, oh yeah, online shop in chemistry because my teachers mean anyone answer my questions. I online shop because I did this two years ago. I shouldn't have to do it again. This is ridiculous. Right. So and it's really hard. I mean, we talk about how hard, you know, a teacher has 30 kids in their class are somehow meant to get every single kid into their zone.
30:29Rebecca Winthrop:It's the flow state. It has a lot of different terms for it. But ZPD is what teachers use a lot because they really think they do think and work hard to figure out how to get kids into their ZPD.
30:39Jenny Anderson:We're going to take a break and then we're going to come back and talk about Explorer Mode. Parents, if you see your kids struggling with reading and wonder what you could do to support them, you're not alone. And there is a way forward that doesn't involve yet another night of tear-filled homework battles. That way forward is the Reading Guru.
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32:59Jenny Anderson:so is it fair to say explorer mode is the final mode of the book is it the optimal mode is it the most desirable mode or is it just a mode that we want to it's like the pepper you need a little bit of it but you know it's not the whole thing i would say and jenny you should add in your two
33:17Rebecca Winthrop:cents i would say you absolutely want your kid to have plenty of time in explorer mode as they grow up, especially when they get into adolescence. And if they are not, they're not going to develop these explorer muscles, which they will need when they leave to be successful in life. In addition to that, explore mode is not sort of navel gazing, doing whatever they want. Kids who are in explore mode really have this proactivity around their learning. They're initiating things and like, hey, can I study with a friend? Hey, can I look at this YouTube channel to learn about whatever. Hey, can I write my essay on this topic?
33:56Rebecca Winthrop:They're trying their best to make the learning environment really interesting to them. And it makes them super motivated. And when they get the opportunity to be in explore mode in school, they get the best grades, they get mental health benefits, they're happy, because they're interested and enjoying what they're doing. And they develop these resilient learning skills that kids need in an age of AI. It's this trifecta. So we say, if kids don't have the opportunity to do this in school, really try to give them the opportunity to get into this explorer mode outside of school. Because it doesn't necessarily matter so much the canvas in which they are practicing these skills, it's developing the skills.
34:36Jenny Anderson:And you say that less than 10 % of kids feel their school allows for explorer mode. So that's a very damning statistic.
34:44Rebecca Winthrop:Yep. Between third and 12th grade, and it gets even worse when you get into middle school and high school, it's less than 5%. And just to build on Rebecca's answer, the pinnacle isn't really explore mode. The pinnacle is knowing the mode for the moment, which is really a self-awareness and a sort of metacognitive awareness of it. But to do that, you have to have the explorer mode, right? So you're never going to develop that ability to kind of know when to explore and to push and to sort of shape the learning to be your own if you don't have the opportunity to do it. So I think the pinnacle is the awareness to how to move, but that comes from needing to have explore moments and actually test that out.
35:25Rebecca Winthrop:You can't have agency without having opportunities to have agency, right? You can't learn to ride a bike without riding a bike. You can't learn to make choices without having opportunities to make choices. And you can't figure out what you like as a learner if you're never given any opportunities to do that.
35:38Jenny Anderson:Right. And we've talked about this a lot with organized sports, organized play, that free play has really disappeared. And that the idea that kids are just always under an adult supervision, who's telling them go here next and go there next is kind of robbing them of this explorer mode. And I think about having been a resistor pretty much full time in high school. I got to college and I often tell the story. It's like the blind melon has this video where this little girl's a bee and everyone's like, you're gross, you're a bee. And then she's walking home really sad one day and she comes across a field of people dressed as bees and they're all dancing.
36:14Jenny Anderson:And that's the end of the video. And it's like she found her bees. And that for me was college. Oh, I can decide what to take. I've always been interested in Japan. I'll study Japanese. And the idea of being now, sadly, I was sort of lacking some of the skills I needed to explore because I failed Japanese and got kicked out of class. But I so relate to explorer mode as the joy of learning and the joy of really exploring things that high school just drives out of a lot of kids.
36:42Rebecca Winthrop:We interviewed over 100 kids across the country of all demographics. kids who are in resistor mode, if you changed their learning environment, quickly jumped to explore mode. And often when you have a kid who's kind of stuck in resistor mode, I mean, one thing is to, you know, have one bad class, but if they're sort of stuck for a while, parents and schools will start taking away their freedom.
37:07Jenny Anderson:You can't, okay, you're - No recess for you.
37:10Rebecca Winthrop:What a goofy idea. No recess for you, no sports teams, no chess club, no science triathlon, no drama club. You can't be in the play. You're behind on your academics. And it shrinks their world and it makes things worse. So counterintuitively, a lot of times what kids who are stuck in resistor mode need, which is exactly what you needed, as evidenced by college, is more freedom and more agency and more autonomy to really pursue their interests. And that sort of lifts them up out of this funk. And it often, if you give them that opportunity, it often spills over to other subjects. And it's hard for parents to believe that sort of doing this other thing, like that doing pottery is somehow going to make you better at math.
37:52And that's not necessarily the case.
37:55Rebecca Winthrop:But the pottery is this beautiful example in the book of a dad who his daughter had totally disengaged from learning. I mean, really was struggling a lot and started doing pottery. It's just terrible. It's just terrible. Like they didn't look like bowls. They didn't look like anything. They were like blobs, blobs of clay that dried and then were dry blobs of clay. And, you know, but slowly, slowly she got better. And he was kind of like, this is learning. Like, look, it's starting to look like a bowl. And she was like, oh. And he's like, you can do that in school too. Like you feel really bad at all these things because it's looking like this right now.
38:30Rebecca Winthrop:But you can, you know, he used it as a visual metaphor. And it makes sense when you see it in clay or you see it on the sports pitch, right? You know that no kid's born Lionel Messi. They're running around in circles doing cartwheels for the first three years, and they're not paying any attention, and suddenly they develop the skills. All this stuff takes time, and we have to find ways to not get them discouraged. And as Rebecca said, when they've got a spark, lean into that spark.
38:52Jenny Anderson:I think that is such a good example, because often when you break it down, the things that we think are very inherent, like learning, oh, you read to a kid, and then they learn to read, that they're not as inherent for kids. I had a kid during the pandemic who decided they wanted to figure out how to do a front flip, pretty, you know, gymnastic oriented kid. And just the process of hours a day outside on a mat, just trying it and trying it. And I thought that's the best learning I've ever seen a kid do is just I'm by myself in the yard and I'm going to figure this out. So when we talk about Explorer Mode, because you cite many different styles of learning in the book, resources, which are all useful, but for someone listening and thinking, I can't change schools, I got three K, how is the solution, I guess, inside our houses already for us and not a big change that we have to make?
39:49Rebecca Winthrop:So I'll start, Jenny, and you dive in. So I love that example of your daughter or son doing the front flip. That is exactly explore mode. They are leaning in, they're behaviorally engaged, they're excited by it, they're emotionally engaged, they're thinking through it, they're trying to figure out their, I don't know, were they watching YouTube videos, trying it again and again, iterating, they're totally not afraid of failure, because they fail, fail, fail and get better incrementally better each time. And they're not just going to give up. and they're actively helping their environment work for them.
40:21Rebecca Winthrop:Mom, I need a mat. Mom, I'm going to do this. Mom, I can't wash the dishes right now. Whatever. I'm making this up. That definitely didn't come up. Yeah. That does come up. Yes. I always have a son who's like, I need to practice piano. I'm like, the minute you have to wash the dishes. So that right there is parents, you supporting your kid to be in explore mode. You didn't say front flips are not worthwhile, do something better with your time. And it could have not been a front flip. It could have been something that you think is really dumb. I don't know, trying to do something with Legos that you thought was not worthwhile.
40:57Rebecca Winthrop:So you go with what your kid is interested in. Even if it seems ridiculous, if they are trying to figure it out and it's hard and they're motivated, that is building explore muscles. So you didn't have to do much except for give them the space and not squash it. So that's one, absolutely one thing to do. There's a whole bunch of other things that we can do just in the contours of our day. You don't need to hire people. You don't need tutors. These are dinner table conversations. These are talking about the content of what we're learning. I'm going to pass to Jenny and she's going to walk through all this.
41:30Rebecca Winthrop:But just to say it's easy once you start seeing the modes and trying to tailor your support to where each kid is at and then integrating it into your day. So, Jenny, you want to pass it to you for more? And I think I'll like start high level and then come low level. I mean, I think it's believing that kids can change and grow. Right. Their brains are under massive renovation. They're just doing this full blown house renovation in adolescence. And so when you see them in a sort of moment, not panicking and thinking that's the moment forever, like that's them growing and exploring and changing. So not panicking and leaning into, you know, obviously panic when it's unhealthy or dangerous to themselves or others, but when it's making paper airplanes endlessly and you're like, seriously, how is this going to get into college?
42:13Rebecca Winthrop:No, that is actually, there's something going on there. And like, just letting that be, creating the space and time for it is actually, it sounds like a passive choice. It's an active choice. It's an active choice to let them do the thing they want to do, even if it doesn't seem to resonate with you in any meaningful way. And then the other two that I would just build on, and Rebecca alluded to this, but when infants are developing, what they need from us is literally like tiny infants need our physical bodies, right? They need us to cuddle them. They need to feel our heartbeat. They need to feel our touch.
42:41Rebecca Winthrop:When they look at us, they need us to look back. serve and return. There's all of these things that literally build a baby's brains, which is quite physical, tactical, talking, singing, all of that stuff, pointing, responding to them. That's not what we do in adolescence. Adolescence discussion is what builds teenagers' brains. And so we don't have to be Socratic experts to be having conversations with our kids. We need to know what they care about. Go find out a little bit about that. You know, you prepare for a meeting at work, your kid's super interested in skateboarding, spend 15 minutes on YouTube or Google or chat GPT asking about skateboarders and then ask that question.
43:19Rebecca Winthrop:Is it true that that guy did this thing? Oh my God, that's amazing. They're going to be like, whoa, where'd you come from? That's your connection point. That's your leaning into their interests. And Rebecca also alluded to this. Talk about the content of school. This one really surprised me because I thought it was too tiger mom-ish. Like, what are you doing? You know, what are you learning? And, you know, Did you dissect a frog today? But you're validating what they're doing in school by being interested. Instead of asking the big broad, how was your day? Fine. But you get to ask a bad question.
43:48Rebecca Winthrop:You typically get a bad answer. Ask a better question, right? Like, oh, I know you guys were doing cell division in biology. Did you know that when people have cancer, their hair falls out? And that's related to cell division. I mean, there's little things. And chat GPT is great for this. It can help. And the whole point isn't to get it right and make sure they have more facts in their life. You're literally scaffolding their brain development. You are helping them build their brains by asking questions, open-ended questions, not closed. What did you get on the physics test? That's a closed-end question.
44:17Rebecca Winthrop:What was it that challenged you most? Or which unit did you like the most? Which was most compelling to you? That discussion really is incredible. It sounds so basic, and it is so fundamental to building an adolescent's both sense of potential, but also their actual brains.
44:33Jenny Anderson:Yeah. And you make a very simple suggestion in the book that I love to review their schedule before dinner. Just like look over their schedule. Oh, how was this class today? And what are you talking about? And, you know, my son is learning right now about Democratic Republicans. And I'm like, isn't it interesting how similar the issues that we're dealing with states rights versus federal and people feeling about that? And I mean, believe me, he's not like, yes, mother, what an insight. Let's chat about it more. He's like, wrong, whatever. But it's the ability to kind of model that excitement about the learning, too, that seems really crucial.
45:11Jenny Anderson:Absolutely.
45:11Rebecca Winthrop:And I would add one thing to what you and Jenny just said, which is one of my favorite tactics is the teach me. I don't remember teach me because sometimes I don't have time to look it up on ChatGPT. But asking about the actual class, because they don't have science every day necessarily. Right. So, oh, you had science today. How does it work? cell division, like kids love to teach parents because they know more. And then you brought up, Margaret, that one of the most important things is this idea of modeling the thrill of learning. When you're interested in something, talk about it. Like, oh, this is so cool.
45:45Rebecca Winthrop:I learned this. You know, this is how it works. I didn't know that. Even if they're not interested or tuning you out, they will start seeing that love of learning. Yeah, that excitement. I just had this. I was at a, we went to a talk at one of my daughter's schools and I raised my hand and it was about space. It was this very kind of like wonky space talk. And my daughter looked at me, she's like, mom, you don't know anything about space. What are you going to ask? I was like, I don't know anything about it. It's all the more reason to ask, isn't it? But in her mind, if it wasn't going to be a really good question, I shouldn't be asking a question.
46:20Rebecca Winthrop:And I was like, it's okay to ask a dumb question. He's the expert. I'm the novice. Totally fine. And I get it. She's 16. So this was like, and all of her friends were in the room. This was mortifying. Everything you do is horribly cringe. Of course. Totally. I am so cringe. And afterwards I got the, Hey mom, that was kind of a batty question. Right. But like in the moment I could have been like, Oh, I'm not going to ask the question, embarrass her or, you know, and I just said like, when you don't know something you can ask, it's okay. Like people love to feel smart and to help you learn things.
46:52Rebecca Winthrop:And so just those small moments of modeling curiosity, modeling vulnerability, modeling what it is to be a learner in the world. We love these people, right? People who just want to know more and aren't so certain of everything. Like that is not, it's in short supply these days. Yes. And one very practical tip that I, Jenny and I have tested all these on our own children. Many of this book, many of the tips are not in the book because they did not work on our own children. But one that I often use is start with the class that they're most excited about. So I can tell when my kid has been in explore mode in school, because they will come home, one of them will come home, and will be like, unprompted.
47:36Rebecca Winthrop:Oh, my God, we made a volcano in school. Like, you have no idea. Like, I had to get the thing. I was the builder, my partner. Did you know, mom? And it's just like falling, bubbling out of them, unprompted. And that is such a different experience than most parents have with their kids when they come back from school. Sometimes they're like, meh, nah, you know, wasn't that exciting, but you can really see. And so instead of asking about the class that they struggle with the most first, which is our instinct. Yeah. Out of love, by the way, from a place of love. Of course, you're going to do that because you want to help them.
48:10Rebecca Winthrop:You're like, how did it go? The math test. I'm so worried of anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, you know, like, oh, hey, what was going on? Are you still doing volcanoes and science? Just start with something they like first. And then that paves the way for seeing if they need a little help in math.
48:26Jenny Anderson:Remind them of the good stuff. I have been talking to Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop. They are the authors of the new book, The Disengaged Teen, Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better. And every one of these modes has specific solutions and ways to engage with different modes of learning and different modes of the teens who may be living under your roof. So we didn't even get to so many of the solutions to this book. I urge you to check it out, The Disengaged Teen. And Rebecca and Jenny, tell us where, I mean, it's 2024. People know how to find a book at this point, but tell us where they can find the book and where they can find more of your work.
49:04Rebecca Winthrop:So anywhere you buy books, you can get this and you can go to the disengaged teen.com to stay in touch with us. And we link to a bunch of independent booksellers if you would like to go that route, or you can buy it from the very, very big bookstores as well.
49:19Jenny Anderson:And we will, of course, link to Jenny and Rebecca's work in the show notes and also our bookshop where you can get the book from an independent seller, Rebecca and Jenny. This could have been a five hour conversation. I knew when I read the book, I was like, this could be a really long one, But I really enjoyed talking to you today. Thanks so much. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much.
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From the publisher
Based on a recent listener question about how to start to let go as our kids get older, this "Deep Dive" series highlights some of our past interview episodes on the topic.
Are teenagers destined to be "over" everything? Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop, authors of THE DISENGAGED TEEN, explain what's behind what they call the "teen disengagement crisis" and how parents can act.
Jenny Anderson is an award-winning journalist, author, and speaker with more than 25 years of experience. Rebecca Winthrop is the director of the Center for Universal Education at Brookings and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
Jenny, Rebecca, and Margaret discuss:
The four different modes of learning that teens tend to engage in
What academic disengagement in a teen really signals about them
How parents can help their kids get more excited about learning
Here's where you can find Jenny and Rebecca:
www.jennywestanderson.org
www.rebeccawinthrop.com
www.thedisengagedteen.com
@jennyandersonwrites and @drrebeccawinthrop on IG
#DisengagedTeen #LearnBetterLiveBetter
Buy THE DISENGAGED TEEN: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9780593727072
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:
https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/
What Fresh Hell is co-hosted by Margaret Ables and Amy Wilson.
mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, parental stress, kids stress, decluttering, meal prepping, time management, teen disengagement, disengaged teen, high school boredom, Jenny Anderson, Rebecca Winthrop, The Disengaged Teen, teen motivation, student engagement, education psychology, parenting teens, academic burnout, learning styles, four modes of learning, school stress, teen mental health, re-engaging teens, motivation in teens, parenting strategies, education reform, adolescent development, emotional learning, growth mindset, student success, learning motivation
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