BOOK REVIEW | The Disengaged Teen

When I picked up The Disengaged Teen on vacation this summer, I had to tell my kids, “I’m not reading this because I think you are disengaged, I’m trying to find out how I can be a better Mom!” And I can tell you that I picked up a lot of helping info to really lean into as the Mom of a 13 year old son, a 17 year old daughter, and as a high school principal. I’m a recovering achiever as well!

I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below. This is a great and helpful read. Christians will see some easy connections to biblical discipleship, parenting, and the partnership between the home, church, and the school.

• The science and practice of good learning is called engagement, and it’s one of the best-kept secrets in education. p. xvii
• Kids in RESISTER mode use what power they have to let you, and their teachers, know school is not working for them. p. xix
• Young people in PASSENGER mode are coasting in low gear, showing up, doing the bare minimum, sometimes bringing home high grades, but never fully engaging in their work. p. xx
• Kids in ACHIEVER mode seem like they are at the top of the engagement mountain. p. xx
• The actual pinnacle is EXPLORER mode, where kids become resilient learners and build skills that help them thrive: they achieve but don’t wilt when trying new things or stumbling a bit along the way. p. xx
• Learning requires courage; help kids learn to be brave. xxii
• Engagement sits at the core of what it means to learn well.  Feelings, thoughts, and actions work together to influence whether kids dig in when things get hard or give up; whether they try to make sense of something or let it go; whether they ask for help and marshal resources for what they care about or passively comply with what’s on offer. p. 7
• Today’s learning scientists confirm what the ancient Greeks knew; that most humans need active inquiry and lively discussion to fully engage in their learning. p. 11
• Explorers do better in college and life because they have developed the mindsets and strategies to navigate their learning independently (which helps when no one is there to tell them what to do). p. 15
• What Explorers have that the other modest lack is not just engagement but agency, the ability to set meaningful goals and marshal resources to meet them.  Agency isn’t just having a plan, it’s being able to plan and execute that plan even if it means overcoming barriers along the way.  It requires tapping into internal resources, like effort, and external ones, like experts (teachers, parents, neighbors, pastors). p. 16
• Excellent teachers provide opportunities for students to:
  • Develop their own ideas
  • Learn something they are interested in
  • Choose how to do their work
  • Have a say about what happens to them p. 19
• The opposite of boredom is not being busy; it’s being interested. p. 22
• Signs of the emerging Age of Agency are everywhere.  In the 1970’s, employers in the United States regularly stated that the top three skills they were looking for were reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Schools at the time did their part, delivering at scale instruction to the country’s young people in all three.  But the world has changed considerably.  In a recent global survey of employers, the skills they most value today include analytical and creative thinking, resilience and flexibility, motivation and self-awareness, curiosity, and lifelong learning. p. 24
• Zone of Proximal Development – Introduced by Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky in the 1920s, the ZPD is the sweet spot for learning: where a students does not find it so easy that they lose interest and not so difficult that they give up.  Instead, it is just challenging enough that with the right support from teachers, peers, or technology, they can dramatically accelerate their learning. p. 33
• How Interests are Developed:1.  Triggered situational interest.2. Maintained situational interest.3. Emerging individual interest.4. Well-developed individual interest. p. 49
• A key feature in Big Picture Learning schools where students develop skills inside and outside the classroom through workplace experiences each year. p. 51
• Kids in Achiever Mode:
  • Show up, work hard, get good grades.
  • Ask questions and seek help to ensure they do the assignment the right way.
  • Excel at expectations set by school, parents, and coaches. p. 56
• Sometimes teens operating in Achiever mode only respond to the demands made on them rather than considering what direction they want to move in.  Often they perfect the art of following. p. 57
• Frantically focused on mastering the present, teens in Achiever mode crowd out the time to consider who they are or who they want to be-critical questions teens need time and space to contemplate. p. 66
• A hyperfixation on jumping through the hoops put in front of them means never asking themselves, What am I interested in? p. 66
• If the goal is adolescence is finding meaning and ways to matter, and discovering some of the clues to who you want to be, kids need to look around. p. 78
• Every time a parent or teacher or coach sees a kid resisting and tries to understand what is driving their behavior before doling out consequences, they are helping children develop the self-reflection skills that are part of having agency. p. 90
• Resisting kids need caring relationships to move forward and hopefully avoid slipping into Resister identity. p. 99
• To get to the key questions of adolescence-Who am I? How do I fit into the world?-teens in Resister mode need help getting out of reverse and into drive.  When we respond from a place of love and connection, we can help channel the agency in resisting in the right direction, paving a clear way to Explorer mode. p. 104
• Exploring requires the fourth dimension of engagement, agentic engagement-a critical ability all kids and adults need to navigate the massive technological and social changes happening around us. p. 110
• Regardless of what they are learning or where they are learning it, students in Explorer mode take ownership over their learning. They pursue their interests, set goals, seek challenges, and don’t collapse when the challenges get difficult or their goals change. When they face a serious obstacle, they ask for help. They look for ways to make their life meaningful. They reflect on their mistakes and grow from them. In this mode, they aren’t know-it-alls but learn-it-alls, forever eager to deepen, expand, relearn, unlearn, and move forward. They are not afraid of embarking on a task without clear instructions on how to do it “right,” something kids in Achiever mode crave. When students are in Explorer mode, they gain energy from trying things and seek out people or resources in their environment to help them sate their curiosity It isnt magic per se, but it’s close. p. 111
• Kids don’t get into Explorer mode because teachers, coaches, or parents give them incentives: Rainbows, jellybeans, and sunshine will not an Explorer make.  But neither does control, conflict, or pressure to perform at all costs, regardless of student’ interests or well-being.  Explorers need an environment that encourages asking questions and taking risks. p. 112
• The act of answering these questions builds decision-making abilities-I can make a decision because I have been asked to do it so many times. p. 119
• Kids in Achiever mode often believe they are their GPA, college destination, or CV.  Kids in Explorer mode have dug deeper.  They may well want those things, but they’ve figured out why it matters to them. p. 121
• Parents need to model the “thrill of learning” — showing curiosity, engaging in the world, and making connections (to school or beyond). p. 150
• Remember, a key goal of adolescence is for teens to develop an identity. School is one of the main playgrounds to figure this out. Since they have to do school, all day every day, one of the few ways they have to exercise autonomy is to choose how they do their homework and study for exams. It is their prime stomping ground for building their own internal drive. When we force them to study or get things done, from a place of love and often despair, we unknowingly impede their brains from wiring in a way that builds agency to learn to organize themselves effectively. To be able to eventually do homework on their own, they have to practice doing homework on their own. No kid becomes skilled at dribbling a basketball by having a parent stand next to them and dribble it for them. p. 157
• From Nag and Control > Autonomy and Support p. 161
• Mattering Matters
  • The foundation of helping kids stuck in Achiever mode is making sure they know they matter for who they are, not just what they do in school (or on the field).  This deep sense of mattering is essential for adolescents as they develop an authentic sense of identity.  In a hypercompetitive environment where success feels paramount, kids need to feel loved in all their three-dimensionality – not just for their grades…they need to feel:
    • Seen (People notice when I speak; I am not overlooked.)
    • Supported (Others care about my successes and setbacks.)
    • Valuable (My actions and contributions, small and large, are valued by others.) p. 190
• The Language of Engagement Cheat Sheet:
  • Are they doing the bare minimum to get by in school or an out-of-school activity? PASSENGER MODE
  • Are they trying really hard to do well on an assigned tasks, in or out of school, to make sure they get a good grade or are assessed as performing well? ACHIEVER MODE
  • Are they disrupting their learning, in or out of school, by not doing work, refusing to participate, or making it hard for others to pay attention? RESISTER MODE
  • Are they taking actions to learn more about things they care about or tie what they are learning to things that matter to them? EXPLORER MODE p. 251