UNDERDOG STUDENTS: Helping the Disengaged Teen Shift into Explorer Mode

Welcome to today's episode. We're going to walk into today's topic. I'm going to read something just to set the tone for today's discussion. Adolescents are hardwired to explore and grow and learning is how they do this. But a shocking majority of teens are disengaged from school, bored and overwhelmed. This is feeding an alarming teen mental health crisis. As kids get older and more independent, parents often feel powerless to help. But fear not, there is evidence based strategies to guide them from disengagement to drive in and out of school. That's going to be the topic of today. It's a book that just came out January 7th entitled the Disengaged Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better and Live Better. It's a powerful toolkit for parents of both checked out and stressed out teens that shows exactly what to do and perhaps more importantly, to stop doing to support their academic and emotional flourishing. It's a book that's co authored by award winning journalist Jenny Anderson who resides in London. I might have to venture over to London to interview her, but joining us today is our guest Rebecca Winthrop, who is a senior fellow and director of the center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. She's also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. She is a sought after speaker on education. She has a bachelor's from Swarthmore College in political science and dance politics, which I find fascinating since I can't dance. She also has a master's in international affairs From Columbia, a PhD in education from Columbia. This book, according to somebody online named Oprah Winfrey, not sure who she is, but she recommends that all parents of teens own and read this book. And I couldn't agree more.

More.

You do a fabulous job of weaving extensive original research with real world stories that really makes it come to life. Rebecca, welcome to the show.

Thank you. It's wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me, Jeb.

So I read this. Took you five years of research and writing to pull this together. Can you tell me about how the book came into be, how you and Jenny, two moms, decided to join forces on this book?

Yes. Well, we both had known each other and were researching the question of how to help kids learn and learn better sort of in parallel. She as a journalist, me as a researcher. And then Covid hit and we both have two teenage kids. I have two boys, she has two girls. And in my case I was shocked to realize when Covid hit and in the US as everybody knows, kids went to learn online at home and went pass, fail And I realized then that I did not know how engaged my kids were. I thought my oldest kid, who was in sixth grade at the time, had gotten great grades and really loved school, was super engaged in his learning. And that my younger kid, who was had struggling in school mightily, turns out he had dyslexia. But he had internalized this idea that he was stupid and he'd kind of given up trying altogether, was totally disengaged. Not so. So Covid hits my oldest son. The minute it goes pass fail, he loses all motivation. I was like, sweetie, you still gotta learn this stuff. This is, you know, important stuff to know about. And he said, mom, if. If it's not counted, it doesn't matter. Wow. And I realized right then, what? He hasn't been engaged. He's been engaged in the end goal, the performance, but not in the learning process. And my younger son blossomed without having to compete with his peers. He was totally engaged and motivated, and he caught up two grade levels during a year and a half out of home learning.

Pedan Epic was good for you?

Yeah, it was good. And so I just know how important how kids learn is. It's equally important to what they learn and that grades only tells one part of the picture. And I thought, how can I help other parents really learn about this? And how can I get my hands around it too? And so I went in search of Jenny, who was one of my favorite education journalists, to say, please write this book with me. And so off we went.

And did Jenny have similar experiences with her children at this point?

Jenny had very different, very different experiences. She lived in the UK and her story is very different. But she had been a finance journalist and had realized when her kids were born that she really wanted to learn about child development and learning and that she was missing the storytelling piece in media, which is really important for translating all that we know to folks every day. And so she was really passionate about making sure we could get the best out of the learning sciences and child development and education and translate it for parents. So that had been her passion before. So it was a perfect fit.

So I opened it up. Talking about the real life stories that you include in the book. Was that part of this idea that storytelling will make it come alive for parents?

Absolutely. It was part of the research and it was certainly one of my motivations for reaching out to Jenny. She's an incredible storyteller and we wrote the book hand in hand. But I will say it is so much less wonky than it would have been if it was just me alone. And so we followed about 100 kids and over across 15 states, along with serving with our implementing partners, thousands. But following these kids and really learning about their trajectories and experiences was very, very important for the research. But also it really gave us some great characters to illustrate the research with. Right.

And they're so memorable.

Yes.

By the way, which ones do you like?

I can't wait to hear.

So to reinforce what this lady Oprah said, highly recommend that all parents read this book. I can't reinforce that enough. Modes of learning. The four modes of learning that you guys come across and highlight here, passenger mode, achiever mode, resistor mode, and explorer mode. Can you talk about just generally what those are and then we'll dive into some of these.

Absolutely. So we found that kids show up to their learning, approach their learning in four different ways. Passenger mode is what it sounds like. Kids who are coasting. These kids are behaviorally engaged. They show up to school, they do their homework, maybe the bare minimum to get by, but they're not emotionally engaged, they're not loving it, and they're not cognitively engaged. They're not actually thinking deeply about what they're learning. They're just skating by. Achiever mode. That's what it sounds like. And everybody loves an achiever. Who's not to love an achiever? We were talking before you were an achiever mode. I certainly had my fair share of achiever mode in school. And these kids are really good. They have great study skills, they're goal oriented. They're super focused on the outcome, not the process. And that can be good. And in many ways. But there are downsides. Everyone thinks they're the full package. They're not the full package because they are not learning how to be resilient when they fail.

Yes.

And that is really essential. And we found in many cases that kids in full achiever mode in high school get to college, have a stumble or two and melt down. But the other thing that I want to emphasize about that in terms of their fragile learning, is that they are becoming really, really good at following instructions.

Yes.

And in a world of generative AI, we are going to see increasing premium on creating ideas, forging your own path, coming up with new ways of solving problems and leading. And these kids need more time and space to do that. So that's achiever.

Yes.

Resister mode is every parent's and teacher's nightmare, quote, unquote, the problem child. However, these kids, they may be class clowns, they may not do their homework. They may be skipping school. They may actually have a lot more severe mental health problems or other issues in their life that really keep them from. From learning. Some kids face tremendous barriers at home or severe bullying in school. So it can be quite serious. But these kids are using their behavior, often inappropriately, to tell us adults, this is not working for me. And so they are actually exerting some agency. And it really is a cry for help. And we have to see it as a cry for help. Often we see it as, oh, my gosh, we need to correct before we connect. We need to discipline. And of course, we're not saying you should not give consequences, but that is what resistor mode is. They're pointing away from their learning. And often there's a very specific reason why. Explore mode is where you really want to spend some time or you want to help your kids spend some time. And we found that less than 10% of 3rd through 12th graders get regular everyday opportunities at school to spend time in explorer mode. So this is where kids are giving inputs about what they're interested to learn. They are finding ways to connect what they're learning to other things in their life or other classes. They're coming up with creative ideas to make their learning environment work better for them, get more support. So they are really proactive about their learning and leading and following their curiosity. And they get better grades, they're happier, and they're developing these resilient learning skills for the age of AI. So that is really the full package, not the achiever mode.

This is fascinating. I'm sure as people get through the book, they'll start to say, they start to label their child, like, this child is a resistor. This person is achiever. But one of the points that came across in my second read, even stronger, I love it.

You've read it twice.

Yes. And made notes. Right. Is that these are modes, not identities. And that one person, one student, could have different modes and different subjects. And you even encourage people to adopt different modes in order to move forward different projects. Why is that? Why is this a mode as opposed to an identity? Why is that point so important?

I'm glad you brought that up, because it is one of the most important points in the book. And we were really worried about actually of putting these modes out there because we were worried people would take them as fixed labels that pigeonhole kids. And that is not what we found, by the way. This is what we found. We found kids can move between the modes depending on the teacher. They could go through all modes in one day. If they have a teacher that excites them, gives them a little bit of opportunity to have a say, they could be in full explore mode. They could, you know, if they have a teacher that doesn't light them up, it's quite difficult. They could be in resistor mode. We have a character in the book who literally goes through all four modes in the same day. Or they could be kind of in passenger mode in school and explore mode outside of school. We found that a lot where they're kind of coasting but lit up in extracurriculars. There's a lot of data to show that there's a lot of kids like that. And the main point is to be able for us as parents and educators to see which modes kids are in, to give a language that is not just grades, to see how kids are learning, and to make sure that they don't get stuck in either resistor, passenger or achiever mode. Because that is the other thing we saw. We saw that kids do get stuck. And if they spend a really long time in one mode, it starts to become an identity. It's almost like a self fulfilling prophecy. And you really don't want that for your kids. So we say what we really want is kids to be able to spend as much time and explore mode as possible, knowing that that's not possible all the time. If you. My son just passed his learner's permit to drive. He's 16. I was like, you better get an achiever mode. There's no Explore mode here.

100%.

Like, you learn this and go take the test. So these modes can be good for different times if you are being bullied. My younger son had a terrible case a couple years ago, was really bullied in school and I was like, stand up. Hit him back. You know, speak out. Like, he got suspended. I was so proud of him. Because he fought back.

Yes. Right.

So there's a moment for resistance. Now. I knew what the reason was and we resolved that problem, thankfully. But there's a moment for it. But don't get stuck in resistor mode.

Yeah. Our children are almost the exact same age, which is cool that we can exchange notes on this. When I ask, especially my son, who's 15, you know, how was your day? The answer, 99.984% of the time is fine.

Yes. Which was the original title of our book, by the way.

Really?

The original title was My Day was Fine.

Yes. Yes. You mentioned that as being an indication that they might be in passenger mode. Can you talk about that. This fine response that we oftentimes get.

Yes. Well, I think most kids say it, and it could mean they just don't want to talk about school. And we don't want to relive every meeting we've ever had at work when we get home either. So take it with a grain of salt. However, one thing we do know, and we heard this from educators, from top experts, from leaders, from Randy Weingartner, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, was. And we experienced it with kids, was when kids are in Explore Mode, they come home, and they don't say, my day is fine. They are bubbling over with excitement about what they're learning. I'll give you one example. And I see this with my own kids. And Jenny and I tested all these tips on our own kids. So my son came home yesterday, and oftentimes he'll be like, good, fine. You know, he just kind of had a day. But he came home yesterday, said, oh, my God. And I was like, hi, sweetie. How are you? I didn't even ask, how was school? Oh, my gosh, mom, you. You'll never believe this. Math was so cool. I got to show you this. And he, like, whips out his Chromebook, and they did this game. He's in algebra. He's in eighth grade. And, you know, it's marbles that you have to graph lines. And he loves computers. And he just sat there for 35 minutes. I finally had to be like, okay, I have to go make dinner. So they are bubbling over with excitement. That is when they are in Explore Mode. And we heard that repeatedly from parents who happen to have a kid who shifted from passenger or achiever mode to Explorer mode. And it's a bit different from achiever mode, where it's much more about, oh, my gosh, I didn't do so well. I have a lot of homework. I'm stressed. I need help with this. I don't understand it. I got it. Which is more about performance, less about the excitement of learning.

Right, Right. So in that moment, do you find yourself saying, we found a spark. I can encourage this. Right. Let's light this fire.

Absolutely. And I sat there with him looking at this marble falling algebra for a long time. Line graphing exercise for half an hour, because I wanted to tell him that you're curious and excited, and I want to lean into that, and that's great.

You mentioned the zone of proximal development, zpd, this learning sweet spot.

Yes.

What is that? And how do we help our students get in that zone.

Okay, this is Lev Vygotsky, who's an unknown, unknown in the layperson world, but huge in education, Soviet psychologist. So he coined the term and what it means is this is the sweet spot, your zone of practicable development or zpd, where kids learn the best. And it's the spot where they're challenged. So it's not so easy that they know everything because that's boring. They're challenged. You have to be a little challenged to be engaged in learning. But they can get there with support. Support from a teacher, support from a peer, support from a parent, support from YouTube video. Like they can get there with support. And so for example, if I gave calculus to most third graders, they would not be able to get there with support. It's too hard. Now if I gave addition to most 10th graders, it would be way too easy. So those are very extreme examples. But that is the sweet spot where kids learn. And it's hard for one teacher, one classroom with multiple grades to get every child into their zpd. People are working on it with generative AI and all sorts of tech tools, but it hasn't really locked in yet. We will see.

So as I was reading this book, I was thinking of my mother who taught middle school for 40 years. And I'm fifth generation of teachers around the Christmas table, it was always about how do you inspire 31 students or 35 students? What do you say to that educator when they're like this is great, but how am I going to apply this to 35 students? Get everyone into this zone?

Yes, well, getting everyone into the zone is super hard. And the thing, there's lots of great teaching practices out there around differentiated instruction. And I think what I can share from our research is a couple of things. One is that teachers are really pressured from above and below. So we have great empathy for teachers. They're pressured from above in terms of standards, accountability, curriculum. They have to get through and they have to make sure that the kids who are, it's too hard for catch up. They're not necessarily rewarded for the kids who come in at grade level and end at grade level. And there's a lot of kids who come in at grade level or maybe a little bit below and they don't actually learn that much because it's too easy, the whole class. But so they are stuck and they're pressured from below because parents are really active because they love their children of like do right by my kid. So we have one, a lot of empathy for teachers. Two, there's a lot that teachers can do to encourage explorer moments inside their classroom without changing their disciplinary procedures approach, without changing curriculum, without redesigning their entire school, without having a new school head. So we really found across 18 countries, incredible research that showed that seven different teaching practices, if you shift them slightly, can provide opportunity for agentic engagement as the academic turn. But. But we call it explore moments.

Yes. Interesting. Yeah. This is. Whenever I'm reading this book, at first you look at books through the lens that you have, Right? I'm reading as a parent.

Yes, as you should.

And then the second time I went through reading it as your job as my preparing for this interview. So I can't wait to hear what other people say as they read this, thinking, wait a second. As a parent, I can play a bigger role here in supporting my child. Where before I think I felt more like my job is to support my child to make sure he checks the boxes achiever mode and then gets the gold star at the end. What a wake up call.

Yes. Yes. We found, and this is part of why it took so long to write the book, because the book actually started off as a school design book. And then I had been doing a huge amount of research with my colleagues at the Brookings Institution, really around the power of community school collaboration. And just seeing the power when you have strong trusting relationships between family members and educators and school leaders, Those schools are 10 times better. And we also found in the research of doing this book that parents, how they engage with their kids at home, this is not tutoring. This is not quitting your job and sitting. Sitting with them. This is not about expensive extracurriculars. It's literally how you talk with them at home. How you engage at home and model curiosity is two times more predictive of good school outcomes than socioeconomic status. So it's available to every parent. And so we really thought, wait a minute, we should help parents do this at home. And then of course, they can advocate for it in their child's school. So we are really saying that parents have an equally important role, the data says equally important role alongside educators and peers in helping kids engage and love learning. Parents are not going to be equally good at teaching calculus. Right. Or any other thing that educators are well prepared for. But we are right alongside educators and peers, very impactful when it comes to motivating our kids and helping them engage in school.

You mentioned that you saw a sign in Nashville, in a school in Nashville that said, be the adult that you wish you had or that you needed as a child. Is that what you're kind of getting at here, that the role that parents can also play in supporting the child and filling some of those gaps and encouraging the exploitation are made?

Yes. That was a Valor Collegiate prep school, which is an incredible school in Nashville, and we just found it incredibly powerful. And what we hope for parents is to give them a language and a framework where they can see how engaged their kids are. So it's not just the grades. That's number one and two. We have a whole toolkit to help them do the right thing when their kid seems to be stuck in either resistor, passenger, or achiever mode, to hopefully get them unstuck and get them to spend more time in explorer mode. Because that is where kids are going to build their muscles that are going to not only help them in the moment, because they'll do better in school, but really help them in the future, especially in a world where more and more is automated through regenerative AI.

Right, right. And it's interesting. AI came on as you're researching this.

Totally.

Right. So you mentioned passenger mode. I'm thinking these are students, and I certainly was there at different points in my academic career where there's no need to get way above the hurdle. You just got to get above the hurdle. And with AI, it's even easier to find a shortcut than ever. Right.

Yeah. If we in schools keep asking kids to be. Do the same thing. So let me give you some examples. And to me, this is actually more. To me, this is actually more an example of the limits of achiever mode. So achiever mode. So generative AI can take the AP tests and do equally well as the top students. So what is the College Board doing at the moment? They have new AP tests and they're going. They're in a whole reform process. They have AP seminar. Have you heard of AP Seminar?

No.

AP Seminar. We should do another episode on this. AP seminar is a new form of AP test. We're going to get this more and more in schools that ask kids to pick a topic they're interested in, figure out how to explore it, demonstrate how they have explored it potentially with others, and show their learning journey. You have to be in explore mode to pass that AP class.

100%. Yes.

And so the achiever mode muscle is not going to prepare our kids for even, you know, in the next couple years for the AP classes that are going to come online, the bar exam or the bar exam or the MCAT or. Or success in higher ed or work. So we also were motivated by that to help parents get ahead of this. Because I also feel like parents actually have a really big role to play in demanding change and also protecting and supporting those school leaders and teachers who want to teach this way. Yes, Because. And I say this out of deep empathy for being a parent. There's 50 years of research on ED reform in the US and one of the major barriers to it is parents, believe it or not, this comes out of Harvard research. And it's because parents. It's not parents fault, but parents are conservative. So when something new is happening, they're like, wait, what is that? That's not how it's supposed to be. It's not parents fault. I think it's our fault. And I say this as a person who's worked in education for 25 years. We have not communicated to the public or to parents what good learning looks like. And so I can't tell you the number of school district leaders, school leaders who are trying to get kids into more explore mode. And it looks different and parents push back and they've had to stop. I did a whole study on it. So I also want this book to give parents confidence that they can partner with their kids, school and support those innovative approaches and protect them so they can shift how schooling is done and not get sort of public outrage and then fired, which happens.

Right, right. So we mentioned passenger mode, the great story about your son at the Marbles. And when you identify an interest, situational interest, and you want to encourage them to step into or it becomes part of their identity, how do you help them along that path? From you've identified something, how can you get them there?

Yes. You've picked something that is essential in the book to explore mode, which is kids get interested in various things at any point. It's called the situational interest. Like, oh, we learned about tornadoes in school. I'm making this up. Tornadoes in school today. That was kind of interesting. Mom, have you ever been in a tornado? That's a note. Oh, there's. They're talking about it. They're spending. Not forced. Of their own volition. That's the key. It's of their own volition. Talking about it, asking a few questions. It's a potential interest. So rather than saying, oh, I don't know anything about tornadoes, or say they picked an interest that you think is really dumb. Skateboarding. Oh, I learned. I'm picking that because we have a character we interviewed who loved skateboarding and his parents were tearing their hair out. He hated school and. But they eventually came around to it. You know, Mom, I'm really trying to figure out how to do a. I don't even know, a skateboard trick. I've looked at this YouTube video a hundred times. I still don't get it. Instead of, like, skateboarding is really dangerous. Like, I don't know why you bother your time with that. Nope, nope, nope. They're not forced to. They're not asked by you. It's of their own volition. So as long as it's something they're curious about that doesn't hurt themselves or other people. Lean into it, ask questions, be curious, have them teach you about it. That's it. Oh, what do you mean? What is that trick? What is it called? Why are you interested in it? Oh, how does it work? Can you show me it? Right? And then really what we want. And if we see them continuing with this interest, and they might move on. But when kids develop a deep interest, it is super energizing for their learning. And it can be a deep interest in school math class. It could be a deep, deep interest outside of school. And it actually helps them engage more. It won't, like, make studying American Revolution amazing the next day, even if it's an extracurricular interest. But they have an identity. They're engaged, they feel good about themselves. And it is literally neurobiologically energizing. They have more energy to focus on their schoolwork.

So you'll see, like a halo effect where it splits, spills over to other things.

Exactly. There is literally, they call it in the research, a spillover effect.

Spillover effect. Okay. So when I read the book, I'm thinking, achiever. That's where I should be. That's where my kids should be. That's what I was taught, right? The child of a student of a teacher. And then as I read the story, I think her name was Amina. I saw my story in her, right? And I've shared.

I'm so interested. Please share.

So, you know, went through all the hoops, got into an Ivy League school and got a 1.7 GPA my freshman year. And at my school, they had two dean's lists. They had a dean's list for those who achieved and a dean's list for those that the dean was kicking out of school.

You're back. Yeah. You're on the naughty list.

The naughty list. So Santa was ushering me out the door. I managed to get back in, thanks to Dean Burnham. Shout out to Dean Burnham, who later wrote my recommendation to law school. Second chances, second chance. You can come back in and here's the conditions in order for you to stay here. And one of the conditions she had was that I needed to be more involved on campus. I was very involved at the fraternity scenes. That wasn't involving giving.

Was that part of the reason?

Perfect attendance at the fraternity parties. But it was interesting, this was 25 years ago that her idea was this is a student that needs to be more involved what's happening on campus. Right. So she wanted to plug me into what was happening there. But the story of Amina was kind of similar. Right. That she had this introduction to failure and she didn't know how to handle it. Wait a second. I've always done well academically.

Yes.

Can you tell a little bit about her story? I love her story.

I love Amina. She's an incredible young woman. She's an incredible young woman. And she's first generation Nigerian immigrant. Her parents came here and she was born here. And her parents are high expectations, hard charging. And so is she. She loves it. And she was achiever through and through. You know, I literally as she was, you know, we were learning about all her extracurriculars and we talked to her many times. They're like, we don't know how you sleep. Like, you know, one of those went to elite private school in her case and was top of her class and got into I think eight Ivy Leagues. Like was just off the charts type of star student. Volunteered and was captain of this and captain of that. And she got into Yale where her dad thought she should go. And she shows up, she's very excited and she finds she's doing computer science and she finds it difficult and it shakes her sense of self to her core. And she was like, what am I not smart anymore? Wait, I thought I was smart. And she talked about. So she finds it difficult. It's a little hard. And she doesn't get a great grade on her first midterm. And she's doing okay in the rest of the classes. So that's number one. Number two, she gets rejected from a couple sort of snooty clubs on campus. What does no one. How does. But I'm. I'm the golden child. How does no one love. How did someone reject me? Yeah, like, is there something wrong with me that I never knew about? So she has this deep crisis of confidence. And then she basically has a downward spiral where she's kept saying I was using all the skills I did in high school and they weren't working, which is. And she said I Wish I'd had failure therapy. She said I'd never once failed and I didn't have the skills to pick myself back up and knew that it wasn't me. I wasn't an unworthy person. She said she had merged her whole identity as being. She was worthy and worthy of love and respect and admiration and friendship because she was a star student and it took her a long time and she almost dropped out of Yale. And really it took a great. Also sort of dorm room counselor to say, why don't you try the gap year?

Yes.

And just figure yourself out a little bit. And she had never had a moment to figure herself out. She was so busy following others expectations of what it would mean to be good, she never thought about what it meant for herself. And when our kids leave our nest, they're going to have to have that internal compass one way or another.

You mentioned gap year. One of the things we talk about@collegemissions.com is that for many students that's a great thing. It gives them that time for transcendental thinking.

Yes. Which we'll get to, I'm sure, since you brought it up.

Absolutely. And it's something that I recommend for people going from undergrad to grad school. I certainly saw it in law school. My wife saw it in medical school. The people that had time away from academics had better perspective of the importance of achievement.

Several gap years.

Right.

Multiple gaps between my undergrad and my grad.

Yeah. So we've become big advocates of it because I think it unplugs you from that achievement mode and plugs you into something that might be more centering for you. You talk about happy achiever versus unhappy achiever and that kind of balance that happens between the two. Can you talk about that? The perfectionist and the fear of failure and how that plays out?

Yes. So there are many. We talk about the achiever conundrum, which is we all want our kids to achieve. And there are many good things about being in achiever mode that are good and will hold these kids well for life. They have great study skills. They have great. They know how to put in effort and drive. They know how to try to reach a goal. These are all really important things. And there are kids who are in achiever mode and they really want to do well and that's what fulfills them. And they're excited by it. And they're not overly pushed either by their peers or their teachers or their parents to try to do well because they're not trying to satisfy other people. They really want to do well and those kids are pretty happy and they have lots of good things ahead for them. Unhappy achiever mode is where kids tip from Happy achiever mode, where they're striving to be excellent and we are all for excellence and striving. That's wonderful. But striving to be perfect, which is a bit where Amina was. And perfection is impossible. It's impossible for me. It's impossible for you, I'm sorry to tell you.

Absolutely. It's impossible for my wife to tell you too.

Any person on the planet, and especially as an adolescent, a young child, a young. These are killing not many adults. They're children for sure. This idea that they have to be perfect creates a huge mental health crisis. And as we saw in the case of Amina, they feel that if they fail, it's the end of the world.

We talked about this before we started recording this book out called Second Mountain. And I recognize a lot of people climb this first mountain in achiever mode that they're supposed to go to certain schools, get the certain grades, a certain job, and then at some point they find themselves on top of the mountain and they start looking around going, how the heck did I get here?

Especially at our point in our career.

That's right. Absolutely.

Not necessarily when you're 20, but some people maybe when they're 20. Yeah.

But can we help them skip the first mountain and get to the second mountain if they're not in achiever mode and in explorer mode?

Yes. I mean, I have this idea for an op ed piece in my mind of the sort of midlife crisis is achieve folks in achiever mode needing to get into explore mode for sure. And I do think that explore mode is where you're going to thrive more over the long term of your life. I think a little bit about myself. I have lots of achiever moments. Like I've got to get this book done. I'm actually not going to get up and go to yoga class, even though I want to. I've got to finish. But in terms of my sort of philosophy of where I went to school and what I did next and how I chose what I was interested in, I always really just chose what I was interested in and the path that sort of opened up to me and I was curious about. So I ended up at Swarthmore. I did not want to come to the east coast because I grew up in rural Oregon and I thought I should just stay there because it's beautiful. But I got a really good scholarship So I was like, okay. And I'd never like been. And lo and behold, I'm like settled on the east coast. But I had never ever been to the east coast of the United States in my life. And I thought it was a foreign land.

Which it is.

Which it is. Compared to Oregon. Compared to Oregon. Compared to Oregon. And then I just got really excited about international human rights after college and I went and did that and worked in the UN and then I got passionate about education because I saw that actually that is kind of a source of a problem. And I just kept following my interests and it's not been linear, but it stood me well. I've always been able to work in places that are challenging and exciting. So you do have to bring your achiever mode. But that you can. I feel like I'm always exploring every day. So I give myself as an example. But.

So when it comes to those big decisions about what's next, do you find yourself giving yourself space to go into transcendent thinking?

You know, I get, I do as many as I possibly can because I so benefited as a young person. And this is your life's work now. I do lots of informational interviews or with my colleagues or teams or folks who I work with as especially young professionals who are thinking about their careers, always ask me, so what was your, you know, what was your five year plan? What was your ten year plan? I had no plan. Like, I literally just went from one thing to the next and I always tried to say yes. That's my one advice. When someone said, hey, would you be interested in taking a look at or do you mind? I always try to say yes. So that would be my one advice. This is personal advice. So I was, I worked for a long time at the International Rescue Committee and it's an incredible organization and I helped really grow their education department. And I started really as a glorified intern. I was in graduate school and I had a little fellowship, but it was really an internship. And my boss at the time, shout out to Wendy Smith, went on maternity leave and she said, you know what, I just need you to sit in my office and pretend to be me. If anyone comes and asks you just, you know, find out, figure it out. And I could have said, I don't think I can do that. I don't know anything. I know barely anything about the. I knew some, but I was not at her level and instead I said, okay, I'll try. And she never came back from maternity leave and I just took over the role. I Mean, of course I had to go through the interview process but I literally learned on the job by pretending to be her.

And you had to change her name back eventually.

But you know, I think if you're in achiever mode too much, you would say, no, I don't think I can do that. I'm not going to be successful because somebody's going to come in and ask you how much do we pay teachers in the Ghanaian refugee camps? And I don't know. And I'm going to have to figure it out. If you're in achiever mode, you probably say I don't know, I don't know if I can do that. I'm not sure I'll be successful at it. So that's my one advice which is channeling your inner explorer.

For sure. For sure. So we interviewed one of the people behind the Never Enough book that came out. A fabulous book. It pairs well with this book.

Yes, Jenny Wallace. Yes, she's fantastic.

So just got back from New York. That interview is actually going to run after this one recommend the two together.

Nice pair.

Nice pair the two together. And she talks about in that book the. This idea that students, if there's too much focus on grades that when they don't get the grade that you expect from them, that they feel like their worth has gone down. Right. That their worth is based upon their achieving. Is that what you're also seeing when you're talking about achiever mode that becomes achiever identity especially.

Yes. Is when they get stuck. Yes. We cite her research, her book is excellent and she focuses very squarely on this idea of mattering that when kids get stuck, we would call stuck in achiever mode. There's a wide range of things that happen that we see learning. Fragility, lack of creativity because they're following instructions and not transcendental thinking, lack of productive struggle. We talked about Amina, that resilient learning. But also, and this is the piece that Jenny Wallace covers so beautifully. They can interpret their sense of self worth as tied one with totally tied together with their performance. And that is what she is trying to undo in the world that you are not your performance, you matter. And we parents need to make sure to send the message that you to our high achieving kids, you matter. If you bring home an A or B or C. Yeah. Or God forbid, a date. You still matter to us. We still love you. That's what Amina needed. Amina needed to know and she said that. She said I didn't think I was a worthwhile person. If I didn't perform well, I didn't know what my value was and how I would contribute or who I was. Who was I? If I didn't perform well, did I matter? She didn't use the words did I matter? But that's the essence of what Jenny is talking about. So we need to be really careful as parents, as community members, as educators to always send the message that you matter. And we're proud of you for your performance, but we're also proud of you for trying and if you don't get the A. Right.

So we're actually pre recording this. Right. So it's December. The book comes out January 7th. Right now the Ivy Leagues are releasing their early action, early decision, and parents across the country are sitting behind their students as they open up, hit a button, right?

Yes.

Talking to those parents and saying, you know, not letting their student feel like they're being defined by whether they have an up or down vote from a school is so important right now for them too, right?

Yes. This is what I would like to say to parents sitting in that seat. And I have a 16 year old and I can share how I'm approaching this, but last night he was sitting by with one of his good friends waiting to hear if his friend got into UPenn because he wants to do finance. It's the best thing in his life. And his friends were all on a zoom call and they were like. And he got in and huge celebration. We're all so proud of you. And my son said, well, you know, now he's set for life and now he doesn't have to work hard. Now it's all fine. And I was like, you know, you.

Know my phone number.

Yeah, no, exactly. I was like, nobody is set for life based on where they go, except nobody. You still have to work hard. And then what I would really. So I really try to frame the narrative at home about what does admissions to an elite school mean? And we're very proud of kids who get in. But the pure numbers are that 97% are not going to get in. And it has nothing to do with how good they are. So this is what I tell my own kid who's starting the search. I said, look, you know, you can go to a high rejection school which has great education. I call it high rejection. Which is true.

I love that term.

Which is true.

100%.

Yeah. But if you don't get in, it doesn't mean you're not excellent or good or worthy. Because actually there's so many kids who are, who could totally do well in that school. And they not, they can only, they only decide to pick a few. Number one, number two, and this is really what I would say to all the parents out there. And it's such a difficult, heartbreaking process. There are 4,000 higher education institutions in the United States. Unless you are from deep poverty.

All.

The data says which college your kid goes to does not make any material difference on their life outcomes. The thing that does make a difference is how engaged they are when they're there. Are they in explorer mode when they are there? You can find great professors, great classes, great peers, great extracurriculars in a huge number, maybe not all 4,000, but a huge number of universities. And that is all the data says. That is the thing that sets kids up on a forward trajectory.

So every parent should rewind, watch that part again, maybe rewind and watch it.

Again and you will be okay, Your kid will be okay, They've got you by their side. If they don't get into a high rejection school, their life is not over. They will have a fulfilling long career. Help them find the right place for them. Not every place is right for every kid. Help them find a place where they are going to engage deeply in the college experience, in their learning, in connecting to peers and talking to professors. That is what makes the huge outcome.

So we're seeing from the same hymnal. My old life, I worked on cases at the Supreme Court with people that went to colleges. People never heard of, interact with people who maybe didn't even go to college, but they found something that they were really passionate about and they engaged themselves in it on a daily basis.

Leaders in our society come from all different universities and higher education institutions.

And I certainly saw the people that followed the path that they were supposed to and then they wondered how they ended up there because they never did question that. Right?

That's the sort of radical downtime transcendental thinking. The other piece that we really worry about for kids who get stuck in achiever mode is the self awareness muscle needs to be built when you're an adolescent. And it can be built later, as it was with you, because it is with many people. It can be built later, but it just is a little harder and you have more at stake in some ways, even though parents feel like the most is at stake now this is the time. This is the time. There's 4,000 colleges and universities they can go to. Two thousand of them are incredible. I promise.

What a powerful message. I'm so glad you said that let's get into resistor mode. Which in some ways, being a former whistleblower attorney, I identify with these people. These are the people who kind of buck the system. They're the fish that swim upstream, especially when it comes to their education. Right. They're pushing back, in a way. What are some of the things to look for, to say? You know, this is a student who's going into resistor mode.

Yeah. So the important thing to note about resistor mode is these kids actually have some gumption. They're using their behavior, they're using their words, possibly inappropriately, often, but they are expressing themselves. To say something in my schooling learning environment is not working for me. And it is a cry for help across the board. So it could be kids from a teacher's perspective, the class clown, goofing off, goofing off. They could be just bored to tears. We have a character in the book Mateo, and then they just are so bored, they start getting looking for something else to do. So Matteo was a straight A student, was below his cpd. It was too easy. Was class clown for a long time in middle school, and then eventually was so bored he started skipping school. And then he went full fledged resistor mode and got sort of fell into the wrong crowd. And that's skipping school, not doing homework, withdrawing, being disruptive, behavior problems, calls home, big tank in grades. Like they're going along, whatever, their grades are in a real nosedive. These are all signs that kids are struggling in one way or another and need some help.

I love to spend some time on this because this is the one, the mode that we hear the most from. Parents correct us too, especially if the student goes into their freshman year and there's this nose dive and the parents are like, you're blowing your future. Everything's going away. And they panic. And their student, the more they drop them at school on the front door, they're sneaking out the back door. What do you say to that parent? How do you quote, get them out of resistor mode and into something that's more productive.

Right. So the very first thing you have to do, and this is hard because kids in resistor mode can be royal pain in the butt, is to figure out the root cause. So connect before you correct is what we say. Why are they doing this? In Matteo's case, he was just bored to tears and he needed something interesting to spark his interest in some of the other kids we interviewed. They were being bullied terribly, and this was their way of resisting. And it's good that they resisted actually, rather than just took it because they drew the attention of their parents and their school leaders and their teachers, and they were able to figure out, eventually solve it. Some kids are suffering deeply from peer problems, and it's really difficult. Some slip into really bad, unhealthy mental health place, you know, poor mental health that we're quite concerned about, and it manifests in different ways. So you have to figure out what the root cause is, and you have to address it. So trying to discipline kids out of resistor mode without addressing the root cause will not work. So it's fine to have consequences for poor behavior. We're not saying don't do that, but you've got to figure out what the root cause is rather than just disciplining the root behavior. So that. So that's one thing to do. And it takes sometimes getting in the trenches with your kid, sitting, listening without judgment. It is incredibly hard to do as a parent. Yes, we just enrolled you. We paid the tuition. You are messing up. I'm gonna have to remove all the things that are going on in my mind, like, what are you doing? We have one of the experts we talk to who we love and adore. John Marshall Reeve talks about the going blank.

That's hard.

Start with a blank slate. It's very hard. But to just really try to understand the root cause, and then you may have to adjust your expectations. If kids are really struggling with mental health issues, they may be just trying to survive while you're trying to make them succeed. So you may have to help them survive for a while, and then they can succeed later once they're well.

And I'm guessing this has gone up because of the pandemic.

Yeah. Is that true, resistor mode? Well, it's interesting. You certainly see a high level of chronic absenteeism about, you know, we don't have the latest data, but quarter of kids are chronically absent, which is missing 10% of school for any reason. And when you miss that much school, this is in high school, middle school, whenever. But largely middle school, high school. It's really hard to catch up. It's really hard to catch up. You really fall behind. So there's that, and then there's the adolescent mental health crisis, which has been magnified because of social isolation. Toxic mix of social media, social isolation, and also school that isn't interesting. And they feel they aren't learning well. And, you know, you put that all together, it can be quite hard for kids.

And yet you talk about the surprising pivot that you've seen from resistor mode to explore mode.

It's true.

How does that happen?

It's true. So it is easier, we found, with the right supports, important to move kids from resistor mode to Explorer mode than it is to move a passenger mode kid to Explorer mode. So if you've got a kid in resistor mode, you have something to work with in terms of exploration because they already have enough gumption and wherewithal and self awareness, perhaps, but bravery to say, this isn't working. I'm not going to do this. You know, they're not just passively complying and so they actually have a bit of agency. It's just pointed away from their learning. And Explore mode is really where kids have agency and they're pointing it towards their learning and then they're unstoppable. So we found, counterintuitively, that if you give kids in resistor mode a bit more autonomy, a bit more freedom, a bit more options to explore, interesting extracurriculars and enriched programs of study, they can quickly hop to explore mode. The problem is that schools, and often us parents don't do that. You've got to.

It's counterintuitive.

It's counterintuitive, you know, which totally makes sense. Oh, my gosh. They're not doing their homework. Their grades are getting bad. You know, sweetheart, you are. No more basketball for you. No more drama club for you. You got to bring those grades up. You've got to start behaving better. You know, you have to go to school is actually, believe it or not, the worst thing you can do is to take away something they're passionate about. You have to give them something that interests them. It's a spark they're passionate about. And that's the avenue. Once you get in the trenches and feel what's wrong, because there may be something seriously wrong, that's the avenue to draw them out into explorer mode.

This is fascinating. You know, certainly as I was reading this, I was like, that's backwards.

I know.

How can that be?

I know.

But you have stories to back it up and many stories.

We have lots of evidence to back it up. Yes.

But, you know, it's interesting in looking through history, there's so many examples of that, right. Where someone's like, they have the fire in the belly and they're doing things the wrong way. Just find somebody inspired them and pivot them. Beautiful things happen, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

We have a great case of a guy named Tevin, a young man who was sort of passengery and you know, if you stay in passenger too long, often kids slip into resistor mode. And he was full blown resistor by the time he got to high school. He just, basically, he didn't find it interesting, and he was too active and excited to stick it out. And he would skip school and cause problems and cause disruption. He was a lovely person. People said, oh, he's a lovely kid, but he just like won't comply with the program. And he almost got. He did get kicked out of high school, but he found the. The principal said, I would like you to try this new program. It's called. He was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It's called Iowa Big, where you spend 50% of your time at your normal high school. It's a few kids across three districts, and you can be on the football team, you can go to the prom, whatever. But the other half of the time, you are using your academic knowledge to basically explore how to solve problems in your community. And these come from the mayor's office, local nonprofits, you know, the Rotary Club, local businesses. And so his very first project, he was passionate at home about architecture, and his parents never took it away from him. Yes, this is essential. So they disciplined him all sorts of ways. They would take away his bike, he loved biking. They would take away seeing his friends, et cetera. They never took away doing cat on his computer. And they always drove him to open houses and they always said, you are smart. So he never internalized that he was a bad person or not a smart person. They said, you could be an architect one day, you know, keep doing this. And like, you really can't yell at your teacher and you really have to go to school. Right? Like, you can do both. And so for him, because his parents kept that interest alive, the minute he got to a place that gave him some space. His very first project that was assigned to him when he started at Iowa Big was to help redesign the main meeting room for the school. And it took a lot of academic skills. He had to learn how to survey people and do user experience. And then he had to get his math out and his, you know, measure and design. But he was on fire. And it literally was like three weeks transformed in three weeks from full on resistor because his parents had kept that alive, right? That's right. It was there the minute he had space in school. Three weeks. And he said, you know, three weeks later, he was like, up late at night trying to finish a presentation. And his mom was like, what are you doing? Why aren't you in bed? You Know, is this for school? You know, she was so shocked. He's like, yeah. And he was, like, on fire from. There you go. And then he graduated and got a full scholarship and was an honors double major and now was, like, youngest founder of the African American Museum and board member of Cedar Rapids and, you know, working at a great job. So, like, just a little pivot.

Just a little pivot. Yeah. You mentioned that you've seen where people go from passenger mode to resistor mode and maybe even resistor identity.

Yes.

Right. And I certainly saw this in talking to some as a proud girl.

Dad. Yes.

I'm always remembering stories of some girls I went high school with who pretended to be dumb, but I knew they were very, very smart. And. And then all of a sudden, because they were pretending to be dumb, I think they struggled to get back to where they actually were. And they struggled in some classes, and they would confide in me, like, oh, I really messed up here.

Right.

Is this something that's crossed all these modes? Do they cross gender lines? Do you see one more particular in males versus females?

Yeah, they cross gender lines. However, we happen to see more kids who are boys in passenger mode, and I think it has to do with some of the gender dynamics and social norms that you just alluded to where, you know, boys don't get status from being smart, they get status from being strong or other things. And so we had. There's a great quote of a boy who's a sophomore in high school who said, you know, in eighth grade, I really. I knew what was going on. Like, super smart kid. I knew what was going on, but I pretended I didn't. And then in ninth grade, it sort of stuck. And now I really don't know what's going on. Like, he was like, I don't know what's going on. Like, we've got tests. How did I like? How do I study? How do I like? What am I supposed to organize myself? And he was really struggling.

So Explore Mode is the pinnacle that we encourage students to stay in the most. How as parents. How as parents can we encourage that?

Yes. So I would say Explore Mode is where we want to make sure all our kids get to spend as much time as possible, but they should not be there forever and never get out. Because sometimes, as I said, with my son who just took his learner's permit, you need to get into achiever mode and pass the test. So what we worry about is kids have so little time in Explore Mode, they won't develop explore muscles. So what can parents do? Very first thing, it's all the stuff we've talked about. Very first thing. They can model curiosity and the thrill of learning at home.

Live the example.

Live the example. It is huge. It sounds silly. It doesn't sound like much. And actually you don't have to change your schedule or like you can do it at home in your existing routine. It makes a huge difference. So talk about things you're really curious. You were reading, you found out at work. Explain why you're curious in them. Be curious about what the content of their learning, not just how they did in their learning. That is very important. Oh, and you have to sort of don't ask about science class if they didn't have science class that day. So you have to know a tiny little bit. Not to monitor but to just ask better questions like, oh, you're learning about photosynthesis. Oh, that's super interesting. I think I read an article that photosynthesis can help in fighting climate change by whatever. And you can, whatever it is or if you don't know anything about photosynthesis and you can't remember, ask them to teach you. Kids love teaching parents about content. So that's one. A second thing is follow their interests. We already talked about this.

Yeah, it's huge.

So if it's skateboarding, follow it. And it's not just that they're doing skateboarding. It's actually their interests are the canvas for their developing their explorer muscles and their learning agility. So again, as long as they're not hurting themselves and others have them pursue their interests and don't. The other piece, don't take it away. If they struggle academically, they need that for their own identity and to energize themselves. The other piece is if kids are really hard charging in achiever mode and they're on go go all the time, you really need to help them have radical downtime. This comes from the self driven child. It comes out of the brain science research of Mary Helen and Margino Yang. It's incredibly important. Kids do not learn who they are and what they're interested in by following everybody else's expectations. Oh, all the time. And so we as parents have to say, hey, and I do this with my own kids, like, I'm gonna take your phone and we're, you know, we're gonna go on a walk together or we're gonna have a family dinner or whatever, gonna have an outing or just gonna sit and talk. Like they need time to rejuvenate without an agenda. Like I'm not having an agenda, walking the dog.

Right, right.

The agenda is we're going for a walk with the dog. I'm not trying to get something out of them. And they're not having a stream of inputs, including from social media, from their friends, which is very distracting. But that doesn't necessarily help them recharge, breathe. And they need space to do this deep reflection, which you can't force them to do, but it is the space of meaning making and where questions bubble up. If you've ever noticed as you're putting your kids to bed, especially when they were younger, if they have big questions right before you want to turn the light out and leave big questions, that is why they're doing it then. Because we're not telling them to go set the table, go do this homework. Or the TV is telling them to look at me, look at that. Or, you know, Instagram. That's where they, they need space to just sort of mull over what life means. You're not going to call it that. That sounds too intense. But they do need that and to recharge.

So when you and Jenny decided to write this book, what was your hope would come out of this book? What's the impact that you hope this book is going to make? Obviously this is going to be a New York Times best seller.

Well, you know, absolutely. Without a doubt, from your ears, from your mouth.

What is your hope with this book? What's the impact you hope to make?

So regardless of, seriously, regardless of any best seller lists, although that's lovely, but one has no control over that, really. Our goal with this book is to help parents see their kids learning outside of just grades. Figure out how to help them get into explore mode more. Also help them be aware of the different modes so their kids can choose the mode for the moment more intentionally. Because, you know, sometimes you should be a passenger. If you have five AP classes, you should be a passenger in one of your classes. You're going to burn out. There's no other way, Right? Yes. And we all do that. I do that at work.

Yeah.

I famously said in the book, and I did have to tell my, I did tell my wonderful colleagues, like, I hate budget meetings.

Yeah.

I run a big organization. I run a big center. I have lots of staff, we have lots of projects. It's very exciting. And that's just not my favorite part. So I have incredible team members who manage all the details. I'm like, okay, how much money do we have? How much do we need? Like, just tell me and then all the details I sort of tune out. So I too pick when to coast and when to lean in. Explorer mode, you know, the book achiever mode. Also finishing the book. So that's really what we hope because we really want our kids, young people who are suffering in many ways today, to be supported and prepared for the future.

Great. Well, parents, I highly recommend this book. We only touched on a part of the book. We didn't really get into a lot of the toolkit that's covered in the book. So make sure you go out and buy it. Make sure you forward this interview to as many parents as you can. There's a big need out there and Rebecca and Jenny are taking a huge step forward in trying to address these needs. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you, Jeb. It was a total pleasure.

Awesome. Until next time. Make sure you go out there every single day, explore and seize your legacy.