October 28, 2024
By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President
Listen to this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast to hear the full conversation between Aleta and Rebecca Winthrop, researcher at the Brookings Institution, parenting expert, and author of the upcoming book The Disengaged Teen.
Today we hear from the director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, Rebecca Winthrop, who is advocating for more meaningful student engagement in her upcoming book (available for pre-order), The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better, which she co-authored with education journalist Jenny Anderson. Through her extensive research, Rebecca identifies four modes of student engagement: Passenger Mode; Achiever Mode; Resister Mode; and Explorer Mode.
As you’ll hear from our conversation on the Hooray For Monday podcast, when students sit quietly, pay attention to the teacher, and complete their work on time, they aren’t necessarily learning. Rebecca offers strategies for spotting students who are disengaged, whether they are withdrawn or disruptive (the more familiar type of disengagement) or stuck in compliance mode — appearing to learn, but in fact just coasting through the day. These strategies center on one thing: offering students things to do that matter, to them and to the broader community.
As Rebecca points out, it should be our goal as educators and parents to create opportunities for all students to spend time in Explorer Mode, where they are driven by internal curiosity rather than just external expectations, investigate questions they care about, and persist to achieve their goals.
Inspired Teaching’s mission is to shift the school experience for students from compliance-based to engagement-based. We know as teachers that our goal is not to get kids to sit quietly and do as they’re told. Our role is to instigate thought, to fuel students’ innate curiosity and critical thinking skills, and enable them to focus and hone those skills throughout their school experience and throughout their lifetimes.
Rebecca’s research supports what Inspired Teaching has been up to for the past 30 years: Challenging teachers, school leaders, and parents to prioritize engagement for students and teachers.
For additional insights, resources, and information on Inspired Teaching teacher and youth programming, subscribe to the Hooray For Monday newsletter!