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

This one is for parents and teachers.

Hey, what’s up everybody? My name is Seth Perler. I’m an executive function coach based in Colorado, and I help struggling students navigate this thing called education.

The students that I work with day in and day out are the students who struggle in school. These are the kids 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 are asking them to do.

Now, during this time with the pandemic, COVID-19, remote learning, and everything being all over the place, I’m hearing so many families talking 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 just doing enough to get me off their back.”
“They’re doing enough to pass the class.”
“That class isn’t even giving grades anymore.”

Blah blah blah blah blah.

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

So why aren’t they engaging?

Why aren’t these students self-motivated?

Well, every teacher has different opinions on this, and I’d love to hear yours in the comments. But here’s what I think as an educator — and as someone who has had a lot of issues with education myself.

I think education is the key to a great life.

Education is what we need — but only 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 automatically come from the “best” school, and a terrible education can absolutely happen there too.

Why?

Because the metrics we use are wrong.

The things we use to measure the effectiveness or quality of education are flawed at the core, in my opinion.

We look at grades.
We look at data.
We measure standards.
We use Common Core benchmarks.
We judge education based on numbers and metrics.

But who cares if a child graduates high school at 18 with good grades if they are miserable, unhappy, depressed, anxious, disconnected, and don’t know how to live a meaningful life?

What if they don’t know:

* how to connect with people,
* how to be generous,
* how to motivate themselves,
* how to care deeply about something,
* how to think independently,
* how to learn on their own,
* or how to create a life that feels fulfilling to them?

Is that really a good education?

So yes, I believe education is incredibly important — when it’s a *good* education.

I could talk about this for hours, but I want to leave you with one thought.

The number one metric I look at when judging the quality of education is this:

**Engagement.**

How engaged is the student?

Whether it’s a middle schooler, high schooler, kindergartener, second grader, or college student — engagement matters most.

Now, younger kids are generally easier to engage. They need leadership, structure, and guidance, and it’s easier to guide them:

* “Hey everybody, it’s group time!”
* “Hey everybody, let’s play in the sandbox!”
* “Hey everybody, let’s learn multiplication!”

There’s natural engagement there.

But as kids get older and begin developing socially and emotionally — especially during adolescence — something changes. They begin craving independence.

And we often fail to respond to that change.

We don’t say:
“Hey, you’re 12, 13, 14, or 15 now. You’re in a very different place than you were a few years ago. Let’s teach you how to think for yourself, learn for yourself, and explore learning opportunities that matter to you.”

Instead, we continue with a top-down educational system where we tell students:

* what to learn,
* when to learn it,
* how to learn it,
* and how to prove they learned it.

“Go to this class for 45 minutes.”
“Now the bell rings.”
“Go to another class.”
“Now do this homework.”
“Complete all these assignments whether they feel meaningful to you or not.”

And then we judge them with grades.

We are crushing engagement.

Now, some people will say:
“Well, a lot of self-motivated kids do just fine in this system.”

And yes — many do.

A lot of students succeed and go on to have wonderful lives, and that’s great.

But it doesn’t work for *all* kids.

And the question is:
Could we build something that works better for *all* kids — including the ones who already succeed in the current system?

Anyway, I could rant about this for another 50 hours if I don’t stop myself.

So here’s the core point:

**Engagement.**

How do we create engagement?

How do we help kids genuinely care about learning?

Think about this:
There’s a local beekeeper near me who makes the best honey I’ve ever tasted. I just placed another order, and I’m excited about it. I’m even thinking about asking him if I can come see how he does it.

Why?

Because I’m engaged.

I want to learn about it.

So what creates engagement?

**Ownership and buy-in.**

I have a choice.
I feel connected to it.
I care about it.
It feels meaningful to me.
There’s purpose in it.

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

We ask them:
“What do you care about?”
“What interests you?”
“How can we help you learn amazing things connected to what matters to you?”

And yes, students still need to learn core skills and foundational knowledge. But they should also have opportunities to explore things they genuinely care about.

That’s possible.
That’s doable.
Creative teachers have been doing it forever.

But our system often prioritizes measurement instead:

* grades,
* percentages,
* scores,
* data.

We love numbers as a culture.

But what about quality of life?

What about:

* happiness,
* belonging,
* emotional intelligence,
* resilience,
* wisdom,
* curiosity,
* the ability to fail and try again,
* the ability to think independently,
* the ability to learn on your own?

Engagement comes from ownership and buy-in.

It comes from parents, teachers, and communities designing learning experiences that matter — experiences that are meaningful, purposeful, and connected to what students care about.

It means saying to kids:
“I trust you.”
“I trust that you can make meaningful decisions about your own learning.”

But we struggle to do that.

We’re afraid that if we trust kids, they won’t do anything.

And honestly?

Part of the reason they’re disengaged now is because we’ve been getting this wrong for a very long time.