Education
Engaging Teens: From Bored Passengers to Curious Explorers
In this episode of Galutian's Teaching Strategies, host Olivia Wall engages with Dr. Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, to discuss the alarming disenga...
Engaging Teens: From Bored Passengers to Curious Explorers
Education •
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Interactive Transcript
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Hi there, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today we're diving into something that honestly
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broke my heart when I first learned about it. And if you have kids, especially teenagers,
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I think it's going to hit you hard too. Here's the statistic. 75% of elementary school kids
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love school. They're excited, curious, can't wait to learn. But by 10th grade, that number
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drops to just 25%. We're doing something to that natural spark, that love of learning that
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every kid is born with. And here's what really got me. This disengagement crisis isn't always
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visible. It's not just the kids skipping class or acting out. It's hiding behind straight
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days. It's the student who looks perfect on paper, but is actually coasting, bored, checking
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out. Or the student who's so terrified of getting a B that they've stopped taking any intellectual
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risks. My guest today is Dr. Rebecca Winthrop. She's the director of the Center for Universal
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Education at Brookings. And she's just co-authored this incredible book called The Disengaged
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Team. And with her colleague, Jenny Anderson, she breaks down something that completely changed
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how I think about my own children and the children that I get to serve, the formodes of engagement.
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Passing your mode where kids are physically present but mentally checked out, achieve
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her mode, and this one surprised me where kids are chasing perfection instead of learning,
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and they're actually more fragile than they appear. Resister mode, what some refer to as problem
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children, who actually have something the achievers often lack, agency. And explore mode,
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where curiosity meets drive and kids become unstoppable. And here's the best part.
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Rebecca says caregivers have equal power to teachers in motivating and engaging kids. We're
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not helpless here. There are specific strategies we can use, conversations we can have, questions
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we can ask. So if you've been feeling like something's off with your teen's relationship
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to school, if you're exhausted from the homework battles, or if you're worried that your
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straight-A student is actually more fragile than they appear, this conversation is for you.
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Let's jump right in. This is Galutian's Teaching Strategies. The
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podcast that extends education beyond the classroom. A show that isn't just theory, but practical,
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try it tomorrow approaches for educators and caregivers to ensure every student finds their spark
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and receives the support they need to thrive. I am Olivia Wall and I am honored to welcome
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Rebecca Winthrop to the podcast today. Let me tell you a little bit about Rebecca.
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Rebecca Winthrop is a leading global authority on education. She is the director of the Center
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for Universal Education at Brookings and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
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Rebecca's work is centered on developing and advocating for evidence-based strategies that
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bring families, educators, policymakers, and companies together to help children maximize their
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potential. Rebecca, I've told you before we jumped on, I have been carrying your book around with
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me. It's co-authored with Jenny Anderson and I have it right here. All right. Yes, our conversation
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will focus on this book. It's called The Disengage Team Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better,
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and Live Better. I am in disbelief that I have the gift of being in conversation with you today.
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Rebecca and I just think that listeners will gain so much from your wisdom. So thank you for
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taking the time. It's a total pleasure to be here. I ask guests usually to kick off with
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research and you are steeped with research that guides the conversation and topic we're going to
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be discussing today. So will you start us off with that? Sure. So this book that my co-author and I
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wrote was a result of multiple years of research, probably about three, largely in the US, but a
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little bit in the UK too, looking at the question of why don't kids like school? What's going on?
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And really we got to the realization that parents who are struggling to bring their kids to school
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and teachers who are frustrated with chronic absenteeism, parents who are struggling to get their
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kids to focus and do their homework and bring their grades up and teachers who are tearing their
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hair out around nape scores and parents and teachers who worry about kids emotional well-being
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have at least one common underlying cause, which is student motivation engagement.
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Yes. Student motivation engagement feeds all three of those things.
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And so we really took a deep dive in and I'm not sure exactly where you want me to start because
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I have reams as you say of data and information, but we took a deep dive in on how important student
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engagement is. So I'll actually I'll have you start with a statistic that was upsetting,
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but I you've deemed this a disengagement crisis. And so a stat you offer is 75% of children
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and elementary seem to love school, enjoy school, but by the time they're in 10th grade,
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I think you said that number is only 25%. So why? Why is that? So this is the most heartbreaking
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and heartbreaking chart and statistic in our book. We have lots of data. Because you know,
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you've raised two kids, you work in education, I have two kids, work in education,
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Jenny and also those two kids. And we know that kids come out of the womb excited to learn.
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They love learning. They are learning machines and curious and enthusiastic and we do something to
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spirit and spark. And to me, that's why that sort of nose dive of loving school is so sad.
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And you really see it in the data when they move to middle school. So disengagement really starts
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going off a cliff kind of third grade. It starts going down, but the minute they move to middle
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school, it really takes a nose dive and kind of sort of does a pretty much as straight on nose dive
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ever since then. And part of what's going on is relevance. Kids just don't see the point.
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And as a parent, I can commiserate when you say, what do I care? Do your homework? You have to
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get school to gateway to further opportunity. But more than that, you're learning things that are
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important and relevant. You should know what the Constitution is. You should know with
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a thesis statement, right? These are all important things. And somehow, kids are really missing the
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connection to why. Why? What their learning is important. And we found that a ton of kids
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have for a long time been disengaged actually and have been coasting through school. But that
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today, the cost of disengagement and coasting through school and doing the bare minimum is really
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severe. Because when you go out into the world, employers, in particular, as well as higher education
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institutions are expecting creative, self-directed, highly empathetic, collaborative problem solvers.
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And you can't sort of coast your way through your education. And all of these really sophisticated
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higher order skills. Whereas 50 years ago, you were, you know, employees were looking for
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literacy and strong literacy and numeracy skills. So yeah, the word has shifted and kids feel it.
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And we need to connect the dots better. Well, you give us a tool. You and Jenny give us a tool to
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do just that. And as a parent, as a caregiver, I found the four modes of engagement extraordinarily
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helpful. Because I think I actually saw each of our boys in different places, depending on their age,
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depending on the interest, the curiosity, the topic itself. But I would love for you to outline
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those four modes. Because I feel like that is an access point. I think often of we only have control
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of our sphere of influence. This is something we can absolutely have control over and be able to
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identify and support our kids. So can you outline those for listeners? Absolutely. I'll outline
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the four modes of engagement. But I want to underline something you just said because it's
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spot on and exactly right. One of the things we were super surprised about was the research showed
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that parents, caregivers, family members, so parents have equal power in motivating and engaging
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your kids alongside teachers and peers. Yes. You know, parents do not have equal power in trying
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to help their kids or skillset, I would say, and you know, figuring out calculus or algebra, right?
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The teachers are really good at that. But in motivation and student engagement,
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parents play a huge role. Really huge role. Including in adolescence, we parents, we both have
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teen boys think that, oh no, they're teenagers, they're, you know, we have less influence not so.
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So we do have a really big role. And part of why we came up with this four modes was so we could
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help parents and teachers see in student motivation and engagement better. Yes. Because it's,
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we found it wasn't actually as clear cut as, oh, my kid is engaged, my kid is disengaged,
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my student is engaged, my student is disengaged. It wasn't an off on. It was much more subtle than
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that. And a lot of disengagement is a little bit invisible. So that's why we came up with the
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four modes. And they are passenger mode, cheerver mode, resistor mode, explore mode. We put them in
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that order very purposely because originally we have to organize them as seemingly, you know,
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worse to best resistor, passenger, driver, explore. However, we found that is actually
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know what the data showed us. So the data showed us that you have kids in passenger mode who are really
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checked out. They are physically present, have dropped out of learning. They might love going to
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school to see their friends. They might even have straight A's. This is really tricky for parents
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teachers. And these are the kids who are coasting doing the bare minimum. And they might get straight
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A's because they are just, they literally are bored. We had so many kids tell us, oh, I spent the day
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online shopping because the teacher was reviewing the math homework and I got them all right. And I
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totally get it. My friends were struggling. So I get she needs to review it. So that's passenger mode.
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Achiever mode is really tricky. Everyone thinks this is the best. And it is good. Achiever mode are the
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kids who are trying to get a gold star on everything put in front of them. And in many ways it's
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positive, they can be in happy achiever mode. They're getting lots of organizational skills. They're
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highly ambitious. They're striving for excellence. They're goal oriented. They're working hard.
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And they're getting lots of good feedback. Parents love teachers love them.
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And the problem is we found that there's a dark underbelly to achieve a mode where
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kids are sort of not striving for excellence anymore but striving for perfection.
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And they get scared. We're really worried if they get a B. Yes. Or they're not the captain of the
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ball team. Or they're not in the finals of the chess club or whatever it is. And they are
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very fragile learners actually. And so they self monitor and stop taking risks. So many students
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told us, well, I got this essay prompt back in English. And I really disagree with the question.
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I want to write this. This is the answer I want to write. But the teacher won't give me an A. I'm
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pretty sure. So I'm not going to write that essay. So that's a achiever mode. They're focused on
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the outcome. Less the process. And they seem like they have everything that kids in resistor mode
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don't have. But the kids in resistor mode have something that achiever mode kids actually are
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missing. I love yes. Yes. So resistor mode kids is what you expect. They're what we classically
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think is the disengaged kid. And I would say in quotes, I'm doing this for anyone listening
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and not watching quotes. What society calls the problem children. They're disruptive. They're avoiding.
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They're the class clowns are taking long breath. They're not doing their homework. They're skipping
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the flip. Right. Like the causing problems in the school. And then there might be serious, you know,
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other serious problems are there chronically absent. Right. These are kids that it's very hard for
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families and schools to deal with these kids. But they have a lot of gumption. They have a lot of
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good stuff. They are actually expressing in often very inappropriate ways their agency. Yes.
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And saying this isn't working for me through their behavior through their words and actions.
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Their agency is appointed away from school and away from learning. But they can switch pretty
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quickly to explore mode, which is the fourth mode of engagement that kids show up in. And explore
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mode is where we want kids to spend a lot of time necessarily all their time. This is where their
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curiosity meets their drive. They really become unstoppable. And lots of studies, 20 years of
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randomized control control trials. So really high quality studies with comparison groups have shown
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that when kids get an opportunity to be in explore mode, they are the best students. So explore
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mode doesn't sacrifice academic achievement. But they are the ones who if they get that essay prompt
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and they kind of disagree with the question and they want to proceed to what they want. They'll
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go to the teacher and they'll be like, Hey, I disagree with this question. I want to take this
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angle. I hope that's okay. You know, can we and like and teachers love kids in explore mode because
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they see them being very proactive. Right. So kids in explore mode are the ones that have agency
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pointed towards their learning. I'm listening to you. And we I shared with you, we just dropped
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our oldest son off at college. And the school did such a gorgeous job of orientation for families.
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And they put on a whole series of skits where I was sitting in this big auditorium.
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It was really it was really good. And so one of the skits involved a lot of little examples of
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modes. And it was a mental health umbrella under mental health. And there was an achiever
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amongst the group. And she couldn't understand that in there were actually two achievers. And
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this was the fascinating thing that I'm thinking about when you're talking. One of them they both
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had pointy grades. When they were in high school, very pointy curved grades, not so much. And
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they one of them had to spend her entire beginning of university focused on grades. No fun,
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no outside, no balance of life. The other student also received pointy grades in high school
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and coasted almost as achiever slash passenger mode. So more passenger, right. And so he gets to
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college and he was joining every club playing all the intermurals. And he started getting curved
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grades and didn't quite know what the issue was. It always hit gone so well. I think the worker.
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I didn't know. Yeah, right. And so that example of a achiever who was rumbling by not being able to
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get perfection. And the passenger of like, wait, what is going on here? These modes, if we can
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identify them with our children now before they leave the nest before they go.
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There are ripple effects that we can start honing. And that's why I had a whole new level of
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appreciation for you and Jenny and your book, your work, because I'm seeing it all. This is life.
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It's true. Right. I love those two skit examples because I'm thinking of two characters at our book
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or I'll be short, but the passenger mode kid who wasn't much challenged and was able to kind of
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not with minimal effort pull off really great a a's and maybe some people else's or something.
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We often found a lot of boys in that category. Interestingly. And I remember one student we talked to
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in eighth grade, a boy. Well, we talked to him in 10th grade. And he said in eighth grade, I pretended
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I didn't know it was going on the school. I was trying to be really cool. Like in middle school,
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I was like, I don't know what's going on. I don't know when the tests are. I don't know when my
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homework is. I don't I'm not sure I'm going to study. Right. And he was able to get really great grades
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without doing much. And then he said, if he was the 10th grader and he was like, but but now I,
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I really have no idea what's going on with school. Like that. I know, like, I don't organize my
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like, I don't know. Like it's hard for now. I'm going to pretend anymore.
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It's not even, well, they leave the nest, right? It's even as they progress through school because
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school gets progressively harder. But your story about the girl who, I don't know if it was a girl
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who I'd gotten. You know, let's get gotten perfect grades. You know, one of our characters in the
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book, Amina was class valedictorian straight A's got literally got into every Ivy League. She
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applied to parents of Nigerian immigrants who are really hard charging and she loved high school.
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She got many accolades and she's like, I love being a winner. I love praise. I love feedback.
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You know, I'm, I love being a door and big perfect. It was great. She went to Yale to small little
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things happened that were not insurmountable. She took a class that was difficult and she couldn't
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get above like a sea. And it was really hard. All of a sudden, it's really hard and there's a lot
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of smart kids. And then she applied to a social club in Goverjector. She didn't get in.
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She could have gotten a tutor. She kind of got her a pro. She could have gone to office hours.
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You know, right? She brought the course of us, found another class. She could have gone to
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another club and found other friends, right? All very insurmountable. But she had sort of
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been stuck in this achiever mode approach to learning for so long it had become an identity.
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And so it wasn't just that she was fragile in that moment. She herself was fragile. And so when
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these things happened, she got, she saw them as rejection. And she didn't see them as rejection like I'm
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oh, these people over here don't want me. I guess maybe I don't fit. Maybe that's not the place for me.
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She saw that they're core. Who I am. I am not liked. I am unsuccessful. I am no longer a winner. And
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then she felt like an existential crisis. Who am I? If I'm not great at externally getting
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validation. And she almost dropped out of college. Luckily, she got coached by her RA to take a
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gap year, which helped enormously. But she did tell us I wish I'd had failure therapy in high school.
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Failure. What? I don't even know what you're talking about. I mean, she was like, no, no,
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I wish I'd had a chance to really fail and feel what it was like and then be able to pick myself
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up. And then I would be more prepared for basically the big bad world where people can protect you.
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So that is a really important thing you just said because as parents, as caregivers, as families,
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we have to allow space for our children to fail. And that feels horrible. Yeah, it feels awful.
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And so the other layer I love about the book is a resource. It is so full of strategies for
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caregivers to help their children shift from passenger, from achiever to more of that explore.
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And I'll say more of the resistor. I am a huge proponent of not being compliant,
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of asking lots of questions, but coaching students how to do it in a way. So you're heard instead of
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disciplined for your questioning. I think we need a lot more pushback and questioning in the world
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today. So what would you say? How could we help a caregiver look at moving that their child from
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passenger resistor? What would you recommend? So we do have exactly as you said, Olivia, in the book,
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the second half of the book is a toolkit of strategies for family, for caregivers, for parents,
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and for educators. And there's some that cut across all kids at all times. But there are things
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you have to do differently if your kid is really kind of stuck in passenger mode or stuck in
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a cheaper mode, even or stuck in resistor mode. And you want to sort of help get them unstuck
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so they can spend more time and explore mode. So passenger mode commonly, what we see happening
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is multiple things, but one thing that seems to happen a lot with the kids who are coasting
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is they procrastinate. And parents talk about being stuck in this procrastination nagging loop
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from hell where your kid is procrastinating, you're nagging, they procrastinate more, you nag more,
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and it's just a sort of un-peace cycle. I used to do this with my own son who was a adolescent
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in, you know, starting probably, I was probably doing it starting in about eighth-night grade,
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where he would come home and I said, do you have any homework? And he would say, yes, I could say,
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what is it? Go do your homework, then you take a break and he would, you know, whatever,
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eat some food and fets about. And then dinner time came, did you do your homework? You didn't
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do your homework yet? And you know, go to your homework. And then, you know, it was time to go to bed
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and he's like, oh, I think I should do my homework and he whips it out and it's like three hours of
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homework and he doesn't, I need the whole thing. So, nagging actually shuts down the problem-solving
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part of children's brains. So the more we nag, the more there are big problems and plan and do the
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thing we're nagging about taking the sand. Okay. So one thing you can do and it's, I tried a bunch
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of the tools on the toolkit on my own poor children is to say, hey, how much homework do you have?
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Or do you have homework? Yeah. Do you know how long it'll take you and what is your plan to get it
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done? Now, some kids, my son being one of them, needed some scaffolding, handholding a little bit
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of nudging and how to even make a plan. Just the basics. A plan consists of what do you have to do?
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How long will it take you and when are you going to do it? That's fantastic. Those three things,
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that's what a plan consists of. So think through those three things and make sure they know how to
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make their plan, have them have their plan. And if they don't execute their plan, send them to bed
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on time anyways. And don't let them bomb the SAT or fail out of chemistry or not pass their
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final exams or anything. But there's a lot of days in the school year where you can help them learn.
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Not to pack to master. They're independent study skills and be a little bit in charge of their own
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responsibilities. And we're just really firm on bed times in my house because I know
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how much sleep is important. And you know what, when they don't do well the next day, they might be like,
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oh, I guess I should have started my plan a little sooner. Yeah. There has to be natural consequences.
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And another fascinating piece you're bringing up in my mind is you hear often when students leave
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and graduate high school that the caregiver role shifts from being, you know, there all the time
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to that consultant role or consultancy. And the stance you just described feels more of a
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consultancy. Like I'm here to support you. But you know, here, here are some ways if you need the
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coaching. And it really does offer them agency and autonomy. I appreciate that. So there's one
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group of questions. Those are really good questions. And then I'm thinking too, I love how you speak
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to going deeply versus broad when we're speaking to our teens. I often feel like they're so used to
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the scrolling or the YouTube shorts that even engaging in a conversation. My two best times of
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day are going on walks and driving when we're in the car to really not for holding them hostage with
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me. But more for just like having being in the moment without distraction. What are the
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recommendations you have? You bring up something that's really important that we haven't touched on,
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which is technology. Because you know, when you give kids in school in particular, but also outside
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of school, super engaging curiosity, provoking, exciting learning experiences, they are not usually
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turning to their phones. They're not. They really aren't. You know, this is a educator. But when
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they're bored, they don't see the relevance. They're already. No, the answers to the baths set.
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And there's got 25 minutes ahead of them. Yeah. The phone is a distraction machine. And they turn
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to technology just to escape boredom. And it could even actually even be they don't even eat the
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phones. They could have their Chromebooks and get, you know, Minecraft on block or any video game
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on block. You can access in school. So technology is a disengagement enabler in any ways when
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they're not engaged. And so we are actually pretty careful. And we have a whole chapter in the
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book about ending the tech wars. But certainly we are careful in my house about technology where,
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you know, things get locked down at night. No tech in them during dinner. Only allowing certain
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amount of hours. And then we just have hours, not even but like minutes and increases as they
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get older. But we just have a lot of conversations around, around why and the content, etc. Like I
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wouldn't let you wander around in the middle of a really dangerous neighborhood at 2 a.m. I won't let
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you know, in, you know, our city, I won't let you do that online. So I think that's important for
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parents to keep in mind. And as much as you can, as you said, scaffold, and when we say a deep
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conversation, we didn't really mean, uh, existentially deep or they're spiritually deep or, you know,
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profound. In any ways, what we meant was try to resist the urge of cross examining them about
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every class when they come home, which was how is your math test? How did English go? Did you turn
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into social studies on time? Did, um, which is sort of the superficial headlines? And then maybe just
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pick one or two things that they did at school and talk about it for a while. Yeah. So for example,
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um, you know, hey, how, how was science class? And what if they say it was boring?
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And say, well, you know, what did you do in science class? Ask about the content,
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less about their performance? Well, what if they, and then what if they say nothing? I did nothing.
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Oh, real? Oh, how do you think the teacher could have taught it better if you really did nothing?
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There's a whole series of questions that are based on Harvard's, um, sort of visible learning
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evidence that parents can use. Or you could say, you know, what was the most interesting thing? Or you
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could, if they say, oh, we did, I don't know, I'm making it up, whatever, photosynthesis.
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They say, oh, I forgot about photosynthesis. What that's, that's right. Could, what, what, can you
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teach it to me? I can't remember. You might not want to say teach it to me, but like, what is,
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how do I don't remember? Kids love things smarter than their parents. I authentically employ
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this. They older my boys get because I don't remember. That, I just, it's so true. It's so
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cool. I don't remember that. What is happening? And so that's going deep, like really just
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getting interested in what they're learning. And what they're interested in, or if I, I, you know,
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I will say, and I don't know if you can empathize with this, but my younger son really loves
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magic, the gathering is a game. Okay. Okay. So I've really tried. I've tried so hard to learn
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and to understand he's so fast. And I watch him or listen to him playing with his friend.
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I'm still trying. I am not giving up. But I will say, get interested in what they're interested in.
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Yeah. If you're a teacher, if you're a caregiver, it's not really about them shifting to what
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your passion is. You can turn kids on to your passion. I'm not saying that. But I truly believe,
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like if you're not eliciting from your students or your children, what they actually care about,
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you're missing a golden opportunity. Absolutely. And that's right. I love, I love the strategies you
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offer. But I also am fascinated to ask you, you have a global perspective. So when we're thinking
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about the American disengagement crisis, what does, how do we compare to other countries that you've
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studied? Sadly, the disengagement crisis seems to be around the world. It's not as, it's not at the
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same level necessarily in each country, because actually education systems sort of, although they
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look very similar in their core elements, can be very different. Like in in in Nordic countries,
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kids have a lot of freedom, a lot of agency. They go outside every single day, even if it's below
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whatever zero degrees. So they have different experiences, actually, a little more ownership
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over their learning, a little more freedom. So it's not exactly the same everywhere, but we do
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notice that the competitive nature of schooling, and I think the advent of social media and cell phones
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have come in and sort of intermingled with this, really does sap kids love of learning. There's a
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study, which is also very sad in my mind, which looks at 70 countries in the OECD. So these are
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high middle income countries around the world. And there's a range of countries, there are some
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countries that don't have a very big GDP in some countries with a huge GDP like the United States.
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So that means wealth, the country's level of wealth, their economy. And as countries get richer
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and richer, have more larger economies. When you ask adults about their life satisfaction,
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their life satisfaction goes higher and higher, the more money a country has, which makes sense,
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because you get health care and nice roads and you have to worry less about food and survival,
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etc. And you have a sort of easier time. However, the opposite is true when you ask it about
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adolescents. As you get richer and richer countries, adolescents life satisfaction goes down,
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down, down. It's literally like the opposite. And the researchers really said, you know, it looks
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like this is the competitive nature of schooling and the stress of being perfect and not just
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excellent. And so that is just a terrible thing to do to learning to kids, make them sort of
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competitive widgets in a school machine. It's not what the purpose of school is ever meant to be.
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And it really saps kids' motivation and engagement and hurts their mental health.
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It does. And so I want to wrap not only with a call to action, but I love to just get your
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gut reaction to some questions that I've curated. So first thing should parents or caregivers
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care more about grades or engagement? Engagement. Okay. Biggest mistake caregiver is making
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with their disengaged teen right now. Taking away their interests,
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and extracurriculars and passions, whether it be piano or track or skateboarding, when they're
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grade slip, they need those interests to keep their curiosity alive and to even stay excited
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about school often. Okay. What's the most overhyped trend in education right now?
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Well, I am in the midst of generative AI and I think it's a bit overhyped on how it's going to
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solve all our education problems. I think there's a fair bit of downsides. There's benefits,
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but there's a fair bit of downsides. All right. What's most underhyped trend?
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Most underhyped trend, physical movement, recess, outdoor time, get out, move around, we're way
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too sedentary. I think we're going to find in like 10 years that we're going to look back on this
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long period and say, oh my gosh, I can't believe we made kids sit so long enough, let them move.
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It's so terrible for their learning and their health. I agree. What if you, well, you are a parent
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of a teen, two teens, and so what keeps you up at night? The thing that keeps me up at night most
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is making sure my kids are mentally and emotionally healthy because it's so hard to tackle mental
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health problems. Broken bones, I can handle. The little health is a whole other level and my heart
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goes out to any parent dealing with it. Yeah. And the older our kids get, the harder it is, I think.
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All right, call to action. The call to action I'm going to put out there is let's immediately
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get the book and think about the modes, that immediate assessment. What is your tip for
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caregivers to identify the mode that their own child is within our educators?
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Well, the most straightforward way is to go into our book and we have a cheat sheet for each
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mode. Signs or kids are in pass and trim out a chiever mode, explore mode, resist or modes.
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Take a look at that and that will help.
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It will. And so first step, go to the cheat sheet. I think that would be my recommendation because
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it's extremely helpful. And then let's talk bigger picture as a call to action. If we solved this
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disengagement crisis, what would the impact be in your mind on society? I think it would be huge
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because A, you know, it's not the only thing fueling teenage adolescent mental health
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crisis, but it's really harming it. So kids will be more motivated, engaged, more pro-social,
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happier, and then they can attend and learn more. And then they can connect with others
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better and then they can become problem solvers and real constructive citizens, which is what we
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need in the world at the moment. It sure is. And, you know, I'll end on that note because I've
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followed you in your work for a very long time. I love Winthrop's world. I like the newsletter.
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Yes, thank you. Yes, I do. And you even though, I mean, you've identified this crisis,
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you offered this very, very tangible way with Jenny to take control back and say,
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kids, we've got you and we can support you and help you to not be as disengaged, but it's also
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that we trust that they've got it. And we're there alongside. So I just, I am so grateful. Thank you
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for taking the time to have this conversation. And for writing this book, it's just amazing.
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Thank you, Olivia. Total pleasure. Take care. Bye-bye.
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Solution's teaching strategies is created, produced, and edited by me, Olivia Wall.
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Thank you to my older son, Benjamin, who created the music playing in the background.
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You can follow and listen to Solution's wherever you get your podcasts,
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or subscribe to never miss an episode and watch on YouTube.
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Thank you to my guest, Dr. Rebecca Winthrop, for sharing how we can reengage our disengaged
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teens. And here's my invitation. Go to Rebecca and Jenny's book, The Disengaged Teen,
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and check out the mode cheat sheets. Identify which mode your children or your students are currently in,
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passenger, achiever, resistor, or explorer. This simple assessment is the first step to
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understanding what's really going on and how to help. Join the movement to solve the disengagement
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crisis. When kids are truly engaged, they're not just better students, they're happier,
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they're mentally healthier, more pro-social, and they become the constructive problem solvers
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are world desperately needs. This isn't just about grades. It's about raising resilient,
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curious humans who can thrive in an uncertain world. Make sure to send me an email at
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Solution's podcast at gmail.com and let me know what resonated and your next steps after listening.
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Tune in every Monday for the best research back coaching and teaching strategies you can apply
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right away to better the lives of the children in your care. And stay tuned for my bonus episodes
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every Friday, where I'll reflect and share connections to what I learned from the guest that week.
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See you then.
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you