How Education for kids with Executive Function challenges can be REIMAGINED with ENGAGEMENT

Oh, uh, parents and teachers — it’s me, Seth with South Pearl Accom. I’m an executive function coach based in Colorado, and I help struggling students navigate this thing called education.

The students I work with day in and day out are the ones who struggle in school. These are the students who are resistant:
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Why do I have to do this?”
“This is stupid.”
“I’ll do it later.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Yada, yada, yada.

They have trouble seeing the value — the value, the value, the value — in education and in what we’re asking them to do. They are resistant.

Now, during this time with the pandemic, with COVID-19, with at-home learning, and with everything being all over the place, I’m hearing so many families talk about how their kid doesn’t want to do anything.

“The teacher said it was optional, so they’re not going to do any of it.”
“They’re doing the bare minimum.”
“They’re just doing enough to get by.”
“They’re doing enough to get me off their back.”
“They’re doing enough to pass the class.”
“The classes aren’t even giving grades anymore.”
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The point is that kids are not engaging in what should be valuable educational experiences — experiences that are supposed to help them plant seeds for their future.

Why? Why aren’t they engaging? At least, why aren’t my students engaging?

Now, self-motivated students will often do these sorts of things, but these students won’t. So why not?

Well, here’s why.

Every teacher is different, and whatever your opinion is, share it in the comments. I want to hear it.

But what I think, as an educator — and as someone who takes a lot of issue with education — is this:

Education is the key to a great life when it’s done right. When kids get a good education, it changes everything.

And I don’t care whether you’re in the worst-rated school in your state or the best-rated school in your state. A good education does not have to come from the “best” school. You can get a horrible education there, and you can get a great education in the worst-rated school.

Why? Because the metrics we use are wrong.

The things we use to measure how effective education is are flawed at the core. That’s my opinion.

We look at grades.
We look at data.
We measure standards.
We use Common Core metrics.
We create all these measurements to judge the effectiveness or quality of education.

But who cares if a child graduates high school at 18 and is miserable, unhappy, depressed, anxious, unable to connect with people, unable to be generous, unable to motivate themselves, unable to care deeply about anything, unable to think independently, unable to learn for themselves, and unable to build a meaningful life?

Is that a good education?

So yes, I believe education is key — when it’s a good education.

I could go on about this for a long time, but I’m going to leave you with one thought.

The number one metric I look at when judging the quality of an education — the single most important thing, in my opinion — is engagement.

How engaged is the middle schooler?
The high schooler?
The kindergartner?
The second grader?
The college student?

Now, if you have younger kids, engagement is much easier. No doubt about it.

Kids need leadership, and they need to be guided. With younger children, it’s easy to lead them:
“Hey everybody, we’re going to do group time.”
“Hey everybody, we’re going to play in the sandbox.”
“Hey everybody, we’re going to learn about numbers.”
“Hey everybody, we’re going to learn multiplication.”

The younger they are, the easier it is to engage a group of children.

But as kids get older, things change.

They start developing the social part of their brain. They become adolescents. They begin needing more independence.

But we don’t adapt to that.

We don’t say:
“Hey, you’re now 12, 13, 14, or 15, and you’re in a completely different place than you were a few years ago. We’re going to prepare you to think for yourself, learn for yourself, explore your own interests, and develop your own projects.”

We haven’t taught them to do that.

Instead, we continue with top-down education.

We tell them:
What to learn.
When to learn it.
How to learn it.
How to prove they learned it.

We tell them:
“Go to this class. Sit there for 45 minutes. The bell rings. Go to another class. Sit there for 40 minutes. The bell rings. Go to another class. Do this homework. Complete these assignments.”

Whether or not any of it feels relevant to their lives, we say:
“You will do what we tell you because we will judge you on it, and we will give you a grade.”

And in the process, we are crushing engagement.

Now, you might say:
“Well, Seth, I see a lot of self-motivated kids who do just fine in this system.”

And you know what?
A lot of them do.

A lot of them come out of it just fine and go on to have a great quality of life. That’s wonderful.

So yes, this system works for a percentage of kids.

But it does not work for all kids.

And the question is:
Could we create something that works for all kids — while also being even better for the students who are already successful in the current system?

Anyway, I’m going to rant for 50 hours if I don’t stop myself right now.

So here’s the point:

Engagement.

How do we create engagement?
How do we help kids become engaged in their education?

I’m not even going to fully answer that in this video, but I’ll give you one piece of it.

How do you become engaged when *you* want to learn something new?

For example, there’s a local beekeeper near me. I got the best honey in the world from him, and I just placed another order. I’m super excited about it.

Now I want to ask him if I can come check out how he does it.

Why am I engaged?

Ownership and buy-in.

I have a choice.
I have a role in it.
I’m inspired.
I care about it.
It matters to me.
There’s purpose in it for me.

So how do we create education that feels purposeful and meaningful to kids?

How do we ask:
“What do you care about?”
“How can we help you learn cool things related to your interests while still learning the core skills you need?”

Because it’s possible.
It’s absolutely doable.

Creative teachers have been doing this forever.

But it’s not the dominant approach because we love measuring things. We love grades. We love percentages. We love numbers and data.

But what about the human being?

What about:
Their quality of life?
Their happiness?
Their sense of success?
Their sense of belonging?
Their sense of connection?
Their emotional intelligence?
Their ability to navigate difficult circumstances?
Their resilience?
Their wisdom?
Their ability to fail, get back up, and try again?
Their ability to think independently and learn on their own?

Engagement matters.

And engagement comes from ownership and buy-in.

It comes from teachers, parents, and communities creatively designing learning experiences that are meaningful, purposeful, and connected to what kids actually care about.

It comes from saying to kids:
“I trust you to have a voice in your own learning.”

But adults often don’t like doing that. We don’t trust kids enough.

We think:
“Well, if I trusted them, they wouldn’t do anything.”

And maybe the reason they don’t engage is because we’ve been doing it wrong for so long.