The Disengaged

Most of us think disengagement in school only impacts those who are struggling with learning. But that’s not the case. When I was a school principal, I witnessed many students demonstrating what might be called “compliant learning behaviors.” “Compliant learners” will follow classroom rules, complete homework, and do well on tests, but when you ask them if they like school or if they are engaged with their learning, most say “no.”

I read with interest an article published by The Atlantic last week titled “The Teen-Disengagement Crisis.” Excerpts from the article are below:

“Many parents are probably familiar with a certain type of teen and their approach to school: These schools turn up. They do their homework. They get good-enough grades. They comply, which in academic terms means they’re behaviorally engaged. But they’re not investing in what they’re learning, nor are they that interested in trying to make sense of it. If you ask them how school was, their usual answer tends to be: Meh.”

“For long as there have been teenagers, there have surely been kids like this. That’s one reason the disaffected-teen archetype in popular culture is so rich (and relatable): Holden Caulfield, Ferris Bueller, the entire casts of The Breakfast Club and Sex Education – the list goes on. And because plenty of teens are apathetic about school, many parents and teachers are willing to give those kids a pass. They’re just teens being teens, right? No big deal.”

“But teen apathy in school is a big deal – and the data indicate that it might be more widespread than many people realize. Here’s a fact that’s important to remember: Kids are wired to want to learn. And when they’re younger, most say they enjoy learning. While researching our new book on teen disengagement, we partnered with the Brookings Institution and Transcend, an education nonprofit focused on how to improve learning environments. With them, we surveyed more than 65,000 students and almost 2,000 parents. We found that 74 percent of third graders say they love school. But during middle school, kids’ enjoyment falls off a cliff. By tenth grade, only 26 percent of teens say they love school – although 65 percent of parents with tenth graders think their kids love it, suggesting a serious disconnect.”

“Again, the teens who say they dislike school may not be failing – more likely they’re coasting. Think of them as the original quiet quitters, gliding along in neutral, unwilling to put the car in gear. Half of the middle- and high-school kids we surveyed reported operating this way, in what we came to call Passenger Mode. We also interviewed close to 100 teens ourselves – kids in small towns and big cities, kids from wealthy families and those with limited resources – and those in Passenger Mode told us they felt simultaneously overwhelmed and bored. A lot of them simply didn’t understand the point of school. And so they checked out.”

“That kind of checking-out can have lasting consequences, Johnmarshall Reeve, a professor at Australian Catholic University, has been researching student engagement – the combination of how kids think, feel, act, and proactively contribute in school – for the past 20 years. He explained to us that young people in Passenger Mode are ‘wasting their time developmentally’ when it comes to building good learning skills. In our reporting, we found that many teens were outside what the psychologist Lev Vygotsky called the ‘zone of proximal development’: the sweet spot where a student does not find the material so easy that they lose interest, nor so difficult that they give up. This is part of what we identify in our book as a much broader ‘disengagement crisis,’ and it’s affecting plenty of kids getting good-enough grades – the metric many parents rely on to gauge whether students are succeeding. But grades don’t tell the full story.”

“Teens who don’t enjoy school are unlikely to be cognitively and emotionally engaged in their learning, which means they’re less likely to absorb the knowledge and skills that many of them will need to thrive beyond high school. This disengagement works on a continuum: If kids start to lose interest, then after a while, many stop doing their work; if they stop doing their work, they’re likely to fall behind; if they fall behind, they might feel as if they’re out of options, and soon apathy becomes the norm. Once kids check out, the hurdles to success get higher, and the emotions associated with clearing them get messier. Checked-out kids become less likely than their more engaged peers to develop an identity as a learner: someone who is curious, adaptable, and able to respond to different challenges and environments.”

“Many people assume that kids in Passenger Mode are lazy. But our research suggests that, in reality, much of the problem lies with the dominant model of schooling, which isn’t designed to help kids feel invested in their learning. One study found that 85 percent of middle-school assignments merely asked students to recall information or apply basic skills, rather than pushing them to engage at a higher level. Similarly, the Brooking and Transcend survey found that only 33 percent of tenth graders said they got to develop their own ideas in school. Of course, we see numerous exceptions: schools that push kids to not only master essential knowledge but also think deeply and apply what they know in class to solve real-world problems. But these schools remain on the fringe. More commonly, kids see the world around them – wars, social injustice, climate change, disinformation, AI technology that can help write novels and solve complex equations – and wonder why on earth they have to, say, study the Pythagorean theorem. If little is asked of them, or if they fail to see real-world applications, they tend to give little in return.”

…

So our traditional school system has another big problem facing it. Not only do they have a group of students that are considered dropouts and chronically absent – a group that has voted with their feet and said “NO” to traditional K-12 education. They also have a group of kids that follow classroom rules, complete homework, and do well on tests, but are totally disengaged when it comes to owning their own learning. That group, while sitting in class – doing what their teacher tells them to do – are wondering why their learning can’t be more authentic and personal.

What’s our answer?

Til tomorrow. SVB