New View EDU Episode 79: The Disengaged Teen

Available October 21, 2025

Find New View EDU on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and many other podcast apps.

Why do so many students seem to lose their love of learning when they reach adolescence? Is there something about the way we approach school for this age group that leads to greater disengagement and apathy? And how can we change our systems, and the ways we relate to teens both in and out of school, to help support their development and flourishing? Authors Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop join host and NAIS President Debra P. Wilson to talk about their book The Disengaged Teen. They share recommendations for parents and educators in the age of rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI).

As part of their research for the book, Jenny and Rebecca interviewed teens, parents, and educators. Rebecca says the biggest takeaway she heard from students was that we’re not asking enough of them, in the sense of truly engaging in the world around them, making meaning, and contributing to practical outcomes that matter to them. She observes that the longstanding practice of tailoring our education systems to the goal of college admission has narrowed the way we engage with adolescents and the scope of our demands on their time. But, she says, teens want more, and are capable of more, than checking the boxes on a higher ed checklist.

Jenny agrees, citing the evolutionary perspective that developing into adulthood means individuating, separating from parents, and seeking status and respect in a new setting. Instead of allowing teens to do those things in an exploratory way that allows them to grow, she says, we’re confining them in smaller boxes that fit our definitions of success at school, and it’s stifling their contributions to society. Unfortunately, Rebecca points out, the transition between this outdated education system and a new model that prioritizes student agency and flourishing may cause a “sandwich” effect where teens are getting squeezed by two very different sets of demands.

To help educators pinpoint what’s going on in their classrooms, they’ve identified four modes of engagement that are common to teens: Passenger, Achiever, Resister, and Explorer. They define the modes and describe what they look like, cautioning that kids can shift among them at different times and in different environments. Ultimately, the goal is to spend as much time in Explorer mode as possible, where teens are demonstrating a command of their learning, agency over making it relevant to their lives, and the ability to try multiple approaches without centering the importance of grades or external outcomes. But their research shows that the typical student in middle and high school only experiences Explorer mode for about 4% of the school day—a far cry from the type of agentic and engaged learning experience we want to provide.

As schools continue to make the shift from what Jenny and Rebecca call the Age of Achievement to the Age of Agency, changes will be needed at the systems level and the relationship level. Especially with the swift rise of generative AI and its use among kids as an emotional companion, the authors see a range of potential pitfalls as well as opportunities for schools to use this transformative moment as a catalyst for real change. But ultimately, they say, it’s going to take a collaborative effort among schools, parents, kids, and the overarching cultural systems that are competing for resources. Still, Jenny says, she’s optimistic that in well-resourced schools, thoughtful, lasting transformation is possible.

Key Questions

Some of the key questions Debra, Jenny, and Rebecca explore in this episode include:

• After interviewing many teens for this book, what are some of the key messages and takeaways you heard?
• What are the different “personas” you identified in this book, and how do they show up in the classroom and in teens’ lives?
• Do you see a shift happening from the Age of Achievement to the Age of Agency? How is that manifesting? What do we need to do to help make that shift happen more quickly and effectively?
• What about the introduction of AI into education? What are your hopes and concerns for the way AI factors into teens’ learning and futures?

Episode Highlights

• “We do not ask enough of adolescents. They are so capable. They are so creative. They want to make a difference. They are really eager to be relevant, and to be given hard problems and to try to lend their voice and be part of the solution to things they see around them. That could be in class, it could be in the school, it could be at home, in the community, it could be in the world. And we somehow have gotten so fixated on making sure that they check all the boxes to get into higher education, at least the boxes that we think higher education institutions want them to check.” (6:55)
• “We also heard a lot that it was, parents often figured out things weren't going well when it really kind of blew up. So engagement is a continuum. And some of the behaviors we see early on that we can kind of shrug our shoulders and say, that's just, you know, teens being teens, right? To sort of bring that negative construct in. And some of it is, for sure. Like I don't want to freak out parents unnecessarily, but sometimes seeing those behaviors continuously and not digging into them then was like, kids get to a point where they're telling themselves, there's no point. I'm not going to try at anything. And it's because they failed a test and didn't want to tell anyone or didn't know how to ask for help.” (15:31)
• “We argue in the book that we need to make a shift from what we call the age of achievement, where through no fault of anybody inside the system, virtually every education system around the world, just how it has been designed from eons ago, is about ranking and sorting. Otherwise, we wouldn't have grades. Do you know what I mean? We wouldn't have that. That is the core. The purpose really was, ages ago, of funneling up into higher ed. How do you select? And so we're saying we are definitely seeing the strains on that design.” (31:24)
• “But I think then the sort of elephant in the room is of course AI. I think there is this question of, is the system changing? Will the system change fast enough? And then here comes the tsunami and it is going to force a level of change. And I don't mean to say that like, schools don't have agency and they can't decide what's going to happen and we shouldn't be protecting and guardrailing all sorts of important things. But that might be the sort of earth-shattering thing that moves things in a way that other technologies haven't. This is different from every other technology that we've based in our lifetime. And I see it fundamentally changing everything. How are we going to prioritize relationships in schools? We've been talking about that forever.” (35:19)

Resource List

• Check out the book at thedisengagedteen.com.
• Watch some of Jenny and Rebecca’s speaking engagements.
• Listen to the authors talk more about their book on the Getting Smart podcast.
• Watch this moderated discussion about The Disengaged Teen.
• Find more of Rebecca’s writings through her newsletter, Winthrop’s World of Education.
• Connect with Jenny’s writing via her Substack, How to be Brave.

Full Transcript

• Read the full transcript here.

Related Episodes

• Episode 76: The Promise, Possibility, and Power of Adolescence
• Episode 71: Exploring Generative AI in K12 Schools
• Episode 63: Building Academic Resilience
• Episode 60: Student Voices on Building Self-Reliance
• Episode 59: Schools and the Emotional Lives of Teenagers
• Episode 51: What Schools Can Do About Achievement Culture
• Episode 40: Student Voice and Agency in Education
• Episode 31: AI and the Future of Education

About Our Guests

Jenny West Anderson has been a journalist for more than 25 years, winning some big awards along the way. She covered finance at Institutional Investor magazine, the New York Post and The New York Times for a decade.

She left the world of money and markets to dive into the world of learning, first at the Times and then at Quartz, a digital media startup where she pioneered "obsessions," or beats, on the Science of Learning, the Art of Parenting, the Future of Schools, and Rewiring Childhood, a two-year project funded by the Bernard van Leer Foundation to examine the neuroscience of early childhood.

Jenny’s final obsession was Being Human, which focused on how we build lives of meaning and purpose among the chaos around us. In 2020 she launched the Learnit podcast and developed a newsletter for 80,000 global education leaders (Learnit is now part of BETT).

Since 2022, Jenny has been interviewing teens and families about their experience of school and researching the science of student engagement. From 2022 to 2024, she was a Learning Sciences Exchange fellow at the New America Foundation. Jenny continues to write for outlets including The New York Times, TIME, and The Atlantic.

Rebecca Winthrop is a pioneering authority in the field of education, dedicated to ensuring that every child has the opportunity to thrive in life, work, and as an engaged citizen. She leads cutting-edge research and initiatives aimed at transforming education systems around the world to better support children's learning and development. 

Rebecca is a trusted advisor to school communities and national and international organizations. Her expertise is sought by many including parent networks, schools, district education leaders, the White House, the United Nations, and Fortune 500 companies. Rebecca's work centers on developing and advocating for evidence-based strategies that bring people together—families, educators, policymakers, and companies—to help children maximize their potential. 

She holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University’s Teachers College, a master’s degree from its School of International and Public Affairs, and a bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College.