Ep. 82: An Unconventional Education

Tony Wagner, educator and author of several books, most recently his memoir Learning by Heart, joins us this week for a closer look at what really makes a difference in the education of teens. What makes the greatest positive impact on students? How an unconventional education can be advantageous?

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Full show notes

What do you want your child to learn in school?

Do you want your teen to learn math, science, grammar, and maybe another language? Sure! Why not? But, do these subjects cover all of human potential? What if your teen doesn’t care about the stuff we learn in traditional classrooms?

Encouraging a teenager to study can be the hardest job in the world when school isn’t teaching them anything useful. (Did that get a raised eyebrow from you?)

“But school is important!” you say. You want your kid to practice self-discipline, curiosity, and thoughtful conversations in school, but that doesn’t always happen. The sad reality is that the American school system prioritizes “subjects,” not life skills.

When students don’t view their education as life skills, they can become unengaged, uninterested, and dispassionate about learning.

Encouraging a teenager to study math is fruitless when that teenager thinks he’ll never use math skills outside of school. You might have a dozen conversations about the value of understanding mathematics, but they are likely a waste of energy for you and your teen if your teen doesn’t care.

If our education system isn’t prioritizing the specific life skills teens need to pursue their passions, what can parents and teachers do to compensate? Thankfully, this conversation has been going on for awhile, and there are a lot of strategies for encouraging a teenager to study that have been battle tested. In this episode, I have the honor and privilege of speaking to the brilliant and prolific author of seven books, including three best sellers: Tony Wagner.

Tony has been wrestling with America’s education system for over 50 years, starting when he was in high school. He’s spent 20 years in different faculties at Harvard University and currently is an internationally sought after speaker and teacher. I was so excited to get the opportunity to talk about his life story as depicted in his most recent book and memoir, Learning by Heart: An Unconventional Education.

Tony’s Story

Tony’s bio sounds impressive, right? Maybe not what you would expect from a high school dropout and two-time college dropout. Like many teenagers zoning out in school today, Tony is an incredibly smart person, but was bored to death in the classroom.

If Tony wanted to get something done, it wouldn’t happen in the classroom for credit. Tony liked to read, but he never read any book on the class reading list because he thought teachers ruined the stories for him! He also liked to write, but his high school English teacher was verbally abusive. To get better at writing, Tony sought out another teacher at the school to tutor him instead. He met with this teacher weekly in their free time.

What this teacher did has since defined Tony’s idea of a Great Teacher.

He taught Tony as an INDIVIDUAL.

Every week, this teacher would identify a specific strength in Tony’s writing, and then give some other suggestions to supplement that strength.

When his school-assigned English teacher later cursed him out and called him a “F***-up” in front of his friends, Tony dropped out of high school.

Since the 1960s, our school system has changed for the better in some ways, but not all. Today there could be serious reprimands for a teacher cursing a student out. But there still aren’t measures to ensure that all kids get the experience Tony had from the other English teacher. Teachers might be held more accountable now, but there hasn’t been a notable uptick in Great Teacher experiences.

Seeing Students as Individuals

Encouraging a teenager to study means encouraging that teenager to study. The interests one teenager wants to study can, and should, be different from what the next teenager wants to study!

Tony’s goal isn’t to go after teachers here. He just wants to point out that you can’t individualize students with the current “batch processing” structure of education. Encouraging a teenager to study the same stuff all the other students are studying neglects the fact that teenagers are individuals. They might have completely different passions that school just doesn’t focus on.

School only focuses on a narrow band of skills regarding human capabilities. All other skills can be dismissed as superfluous. Unfortunately, this only serves the kids who have an interest or competency in those specific skills! He says he sees teachers so constrained by a demand to teach “subjects” that they forget that they’re teaching young people.

INDIVIDUALS.

When it comes to encouraging a teenager to study, Tony desires to see teachers distill what is critically important about their subject. Once those fundamentals are taught, teachers can then make time for students to apply those foundational skills to their specific passions. A math teacher probably knows that some algebraic functions can apply to all life skills. What if after teaching those skills, that teacher then helped students apply those to their individual interests? Pointing out the relevancy of these skills can increase a students passion to learn, and this is something parents can do for students as well.

It took Tony 30 years to realize that a knowledge of grammar did not equate to a strength in writing. Still, grammar skills are necessary to become a good writer. Likewise, a student interested in car engines shouldn’t have to wait until college to apply science class to racecars. In the current system, that student might not even make it to college, because they can’t make the connection between school and their passion.

Stay Curious!

What’s been true at least for Tony, is that you won’t find a reason to learn until you find a reason to care. Therefore, his advice for adults to give to young people is: Stay CURIOUS!

Without curiosity, good luck encouraging a teenager to study. According to Tony, curiosity is what keeps people inspired. Tony believes every student should have a notebook to write down ALL their questions and concerns, related to class or not.

Encouraging a teenager to study these questions in their notebooks promotes curiosity. If every child had a journal where they could write down their questions to pursue later, curiosity could become a habit. This necessitates adults creating time and space for young people to pursue those questions. If students don’t have the space to pursue their questions, then there’s no motivation for them to be curious. But by encouraging a teenager to study their interests, curiosity, that sweet desire to learn more, could become normal in almost every student.

This strategy of journaling can be super effective for encouraging at home, too, not just at school. Parents can also...