The Self-Driven Child
Helping parents raise kids with healthy motivation and resilience in facing life's challenges. Oh, and having more fun while doing it!
The Self-Driven Child
Tapping into what really motivates teens: an interview with bestselling author and psychologist Dr. David Yeager
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Dr. David Yeager joins me for a fascinating conversation about what really motivates adolescents — and why so many adults misunderstand teenage behavior in the first place. Drawing from his groundbreaking book 10 to 25, David explains why teens aren’t “lazy” or irrational at all. They’re deeply motivated by status, belonging, respect, and purpose — and when adults learn how to connect healthy behaviors to those drives, everything changes.
We also unpack the “mentor mindset” that helps parents, teachers, and coaches guide young people without falling into the traps of overprotection or harsh enforcement. From belonging uncertainty and resilience to project-based learning, earned prestige, and the future of education in the AI era, this conversation is packed with practical insight for anyone raising, teaching, or supporting adolescents.
Episode Highlights
[1:08] - Dr. David Yeager explains why adolescence really spans ages 10 to 25 — and how motivation changes during that developmental window.
[7:25] - Why the “teen brain is broken” narrative has done more harm than good for parents, educators, and young people themselves.
[15:41] - How adults can motivate teens more effectively by connecting long-term goals to what matters to them right now.
[17:59] - The surprising anti-smoking campaign that completely failed with teens — and the one that transformed adolescent behavior nationwide.
[25:00] - David introduces the “mentor mindset”: high standards paired with high support and deep respect.
[30:49] - Why struggle, stress, and anxiety are often signs of growth — not signals to quit.
[38:25] - A powerful discussion on belonging uncertainty and why transitions can feel so destabilizing for young people.
[47:22] - The concept of “earned prestige” and why many schools unintentionally make academic success feel low-status.
[56:00] - How schools can reduce competition and bullying by creating multiple paths for students to thrive.
[1:01:00] - The hidden story behind Jaime Escalante and what truly creates transformational learning environments.
[1:08:40] - David shares why the rise of AI makes motivation, purpose, and meaningful learning more important than ever.
Links and Resources
Dr. David Yeager’s book: 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People
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If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a tutoring or college plan together, reach out to Ned's company, PrepMatters at www.prepmatters.com
Hey, folks, Ned here, like me, you want your kids, your students, honestly, all the young people you know to thrive, and you know how much you can help. But like me, you probably also recognize that you fall short more than you like to, in part, because we tend to revert to old ways. We hear a great suggestion or learn a new approach, but to easily fall back into the same darn things that didn't work before, it isn't easy, which is why I'm really excited to share with you that Bill and I have a new book out this spring, the seven principles for raising a self driven child, a workbook. Our goal is to make it easier to put into practice more of the advice from our first two books, the self driven child and what do you say? Full of reflections and exercises to do yourself with your partner and with your children. We want to help make the self driven child way, your way, so you can, more often than not, be as effective as you want to be with your kids in ways that we know you want to be if you get a chance order a copy bill, and I and your kids would be grateful.
Dr. David Yeager:And one of my big pieces of advice is like, as a parent, don't waste a crisis. 80 to 95% of all the time you will spend with your child is over when they leave the home at 18,
Ned Johnson:right and
Dr. David Yeager:they're gonna live 6570 more years. What have you done with that time? Did you use every crisis as a chance to give them the gift of character or wisdom or resilience, and if not, then, like, what were you doing? Like you're preparing someone you love more than anything in the world to deal with the difficulties of life. And what bigger gift, what more noble sacrifice could there be as a parent? And I just think that's that's why the attitude should be this mentor mindset of of like not wasting a crisis and helping them actually learn the right lessons.
Ned Johnson:Welcome to the self driven child podcast. I'm your host, Ned Johnson and co author with Dr William stick shirt, of the books the self driven child, the science and sense of giving your kids more control over their lives and what do you say? How to talk with kids to build motivation, stress, tolerance and a happy home. If our world view is that young people are just the worst, then there's no advice, no magical tips or tricks we can offer to help conjure up a suddenly self motivated teenager. The truth is that teenagers are incredibly driven and motivated about the things that they care about. In today's episode, I speak with Dr David Yeager, eminent professor of psychology and author of the national bestseller, 10 to 25 the science of motivating young people. Dr Yeager will speak about his research on motivation and how to understand the goals that matter to our teens and then reframe those behaviors that we know are good for their long term self interest. By doing that a teen brain that appears to be unmotivated can actually become among the most motivated. I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the self driven child podcast. So David Ager, thanks for joining me to talk about your terrific book.
Dr. David Yeager:Yeah, thanks for having
Ned Johnson:me. As you know, our work overlaps a bit with yours, and so I was thrilled to learn about this book and certainly have this conversation with you. Let's jump right in with adolescence. First of all, why do you have the book 10 to 25 not because a lot of people probably think of adolescence is like those four years of getting through high school, maybe, if they're generous, middle school.
Dr. David Yeager:Yeah, so the we call it 10 to 25 because it's everything in the period between roughly the onset of puberty, specifically the gonadal axis of puberty. So that's characterized by increases in testosterone and estradiol, both boys and girls, and the effects that that pubertal maturation has on the brain in terms of motivation and attention, that kind of kicks in around 10. And then 25 is roughly the age at which in the West, people tend to take on adult like roles in their culture or society. And what I argue in the book is that, you know, when we have a very siloed definition of adolescence, then we have a very narrow range of sources for information on how to manage them and motivate them and deal with them. But when you have to get these more expansive view and point out that there's actually very similar motivational forces happening across that age spectrum, then we can broaden the ideas that we have and feel more effective. So to be very concrete, around the onset of puberty, young people start becoming very attuned to their social standing, status, respect, prestige, reputation, a lot of those things, and that continues until you can basically take your status for granted because you've a. Establish your position in a culture, which, again, can might happen at 25 might be 30, might be 21 depending on your specific role. But we can assume, on average, that there's going to be a lot of similarities in that age range. And once you realize that, then all of a sudden, managers of 22 year olds can borrow ideas from coaches of 11 year olds and vice versa. And parents can borrow ideas from teachers and from coaches, etc. I love that idea. I mean really thinking that this is
Ned Johnson:sort of one long developmental stage, and not only, I think, for young people, but for you know, as you note, for the adults around us, if we are around them, if we are collectively thinking about this as a 15 year developmental process,
Dr. David Yeager:yeah. I mean, I think that that, like a big premise of of my work is just that it's really hard out there for parents and teachers of adolescence. Yeah, and you we're desperate for ideas, and a lot of those ideas come in the form of tips or tricks that are like one thing you try,
Ned Johnson:and
Dr. David Yeager:they're just never going to come across as coherent and effective. And I think we need, rather than a list of tips or like a recipe to follow, we need a mindset shift, because that societal mindset that we've learned has all kinds of problems, and it's given us this belief that, you know, young people are incorrigible. They're a total pain in the butt. I mean, think like, if you for any parent, when you have a baby, strangers come up to you and they're like, oh, this baby is adorable. We love this baby like you must be in cloud nine. I hope this day never ends, and no one says it to you if you have a 13 year old on your hip, you know, if they're like, just wait until they're 30, and then they'll be fun, you know? And that that mindset permeates everything we do. And I think if that's our worldview, that young people are the worst,
Ned Johnson:then
Dr. David Yeager:no amount of me giving you tips and tricks is going to actually help you be more effective, because you're going to be like, I'm supposed to ask questions and wait for answers and give autonomy. That sounds stupid, because these young people are going to, you know, give them an inch, they're going to take a mile, they're going to give a mouse a cookie, and they're going to ask for, you know, 90 cookies,
Ned Johnson:yeah.
Dr. David Yeager:And so I would never do that. And so I think what I'm trying to do is to characterize like, what's timeless about adolescence
Ned Johnson:is deep in our biology and our culture, so that we have a mindset shift that can apply throughout our lives and across generations in a timeless way. I love it well. As someone who spent something north of 50,000 hours one on one with other people's teenagers. I think they are. I mean, babies are adorable, but I think teens are magnificent, and so you're preaching to the choir here. You mentioned we need to shift the mindset. Talk in the book about the dominant mindset that most adults have of young people, of the neurobiological incompetence model. Yeah, explain
Dr. David Yeager:this is, this is just the idea that many of us have heard, that puberty basically makes the teenage brain go crazy, and because it's going crazy, then it can't be trusted
Ned Johnson:that then,
Dr. David Yeager:you know, the onset of puberty causes a surge in hormones. Those hormones flood the brain with, you know, desire, and then reason can't, you know, mitigate those desires or control them, or
Ned Johnson:all gas,
Dr. David Yeager:no breaks, strategically, yeah, and I mean that, that metaphor of all gas no breaks came from a very specific meeting for the MacArthur working group, people like Larry Steinberg, And also people who've kind of changed their tune, like Ron Dahl and Adriana Galvan since the early 2000s and there was a group of leading scholars who were all fabulous people and wonderful leaders in the field who were trying to solve a different problem than this societal narrative problem. They were trying to solve the problem of life without parole for teenage offenders or death penalty for teenage offenders. And so what was happening was that, like, a 15 year old might be complicit in a murder, like a gang involved. This is you know, after the 90s, with the crack
Ned Johnson:like, epidemic and all that, you know, all the stuff that happened in the 90s that we were worried about. And so those teenagers would be sentenced to life without parole or to the death penalty, that basically kids would be tried as adults. And so the neuroscientists were like, This is wrong in part, because disproportionately the kids who were arrested and put in prison were either black or poor. And so it was like a justice issue and a fairness issue, part. And so what, what they did is they argue that the teenage brain is incapable of thinking about long term consequences and and furthermore, that when you get older, then your brain becomes better at thinking about long term consequences, and therefore you shouldn't lock people away as being fundamentally evil for committing a crime as a teenager. Instead, it. Could be chalked up to youthful indiscretion, and in fact, you could grow out of it. And so you might have a long prison sentence, like 10 years, but not 60 years. And the data kind of bore that out. Actually, there's a guy named Frank zimmering is at Berkeley and has a bunch of books on this that that for a huge proportion of crimes of passion, people just grow out of it. Like, you don't even need to really reform people necessarily. They're just like, I don't feel like doing that anymore. And so that like that in that argument, what they did is they showed that when you gave teenagers like impulsive decisions and then put them in the brain scanner, that certain reasons that the brain didn't light up, specifically the cognitive control or self control regions and other reasons were going gangbusters. Like the emotion regions, and they use that to argue that teenagers are all emotion, no reason. So that changed Supreme Court precedent. It like changed lots of lives, a big victory for justice and for science, yay. And that then permeated popular culture to say, well, if teenagers aren't accountable for their crimes, then maybe they shouldn't, like be able to get birth control. Maybe they shouldn't be able to vote, because they're going to get swayed by all the like the communists, and they're going to, you know, ruin our, you know, our favorable tax laws. So we don't want teenagers, 18 year olds, voting. And these are, like, legit. These are real arguments that people have said out loud and on and on. Like, you know, Clarence Thomas was like, Well, okay, well, if teenagers basically involuntarily commit crimes because their brains aren't ready, then they shouldn't have access to contraception. They shouldn't, you
Dr. David Yeager:know, be able to make reproductive choices, et cetera. So that what really drove it home to me, how much this incompetence model is permeated, is I talked to a surgeon at top hospital as a nephrologist, and he normally worked with kidney transplant patients, and he was like, Look, teenagers lack a prefrontal cortex. Asking them to remember to take their medicine or plan ahead is like asking someone who doesn't have biceps to do push ups. It's like it's impossible. And so that really drove home, that that idea is permeated, and because we tend to believe that, and hear it, that we do all kinds of dumb stuff when we talk to teenagers, right? They make a poor choice, and we're like, what were you thinking? But we're not curious what the kid was thinking. Yeah,
Unknown:that's
Dr. David Yeager:an accusation with the question. It's an accusation.
Ned Johnson:Yeah, yeah. And I love in the book, you the smile or I'm thinking about not having a prefrontal cortex. I had a student years ago who was into a lot of we'll call them, call them hijinks in ways that were crazy making for his loving dad and I was trying to express my confidence in the in the eventual, albeit slow maturation of his ADHD and probably marijuana affected prefrontal cortex, but that it would get come online fully eventually. And his dad looked at me said, are we sure he has a prefrontal cortex so, well, we're not going to test that, but I suspect Yes. But you know, but your point that this assumption that we don't have cortical maturation, therefore kids can't make, you know, they can't be trusted with decisions, right? But you make a point. Of course, we let kids do calculus, right? And they figure out how to romance someone else, and even, and even deviant behavior takes a whole lot of planning to figure out how to navigate around parental controls, right?
Dr. David Yeager:Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that you hear this stuff a lot, right, that they lack a prefrontal cortex. And I talked to my friend Adriana Galvan who's one of the leading neuroscientists in this area. And she's like, that's this is not true. Anatomically, this is not true, but, but even just intuitively, right? So the prefrontal cortex is for goal directed behavior,
Ned Johnson:right,
Dr. David Yeager:right? And so saying that, like, it executes plans and thinks about a counterfactual future that then drives goal directed behavior. Saying the lack of prefrontal cortex is like saying that they're incapable of goal directed behavior. And of course, that's not true. Teenagers are great at goal directed behavior. This is not the goals we want them to be pursuing,
Ned Johnson:right?
Dr. David Yeager:You know, like the if you ask them to factor trinomials on a worksheet, they're like, No. And they were like, Why don't you care about your future. Don't you know that you have to get an A on this worksheet so that you can get an A in this class, so that next year you can take a harder math class, and then the year after that, have a harder math class, and then maybe one day, impress a college admissions officer enough to have them let you borrow hundreds of 1000s of dollars so that you can take harder math classes so that one day in your 30s, you can have a mortgage. And it's like, that's not a compelling argument for a 14 year old, you know? And
Ned Johnson:then when there's something cute, and then in the next, next row over, I'd rather more commanding of that, yeah,
Dr. David Yeager:or even, just like, you know, other things you could do to enhance your reputation. Right now,
Ned Johnson:yeah,
Dr. David Yeager:but like, you asked that same kid you're like, we don't think about your future. Ask them to sneak out of the house and go to a party. They're thinking weeks in advance, like, Who do I have to lie to? Like, where's the map of the sewers? They're ordering fake mustaches on Amazon. Like, who knows what they're doing. But they're making plans, and they're executing those plans far in advance, right? The same kid that looks impulsive and doesn't turn in their worksheets has an elaborate like request for someone to go to prom with them that they've planned for for months. So right? Let's which then suggests that was so then the big insight is, okay, well now if you're rejecting this incompetence model,
Ned Johnson:yeah.
Dr. David Yeager:And the real trick is figuring out which goals they want to pursue then. Then the trick for motivating adolescents is to reframe behaviors that we know are good for their long term self interest in terms of goals that matter to them right now,
Ned Johnson:right?
Dr. David Yeager:And once you do that, then actually you can take a brain that looks like it's unmotivated and actually make it be among the most motivated and highly self regulated for the sake of something that matters to them.
Ned Johnson:It's such a good point. So let's dig in a little bit more about what are the things that the ways that parents or adults generally try to communicate with young people that just fall so flat?
Dr. David Yeager:Yeah, I mean that a lot of times people will ask me, like, Okay, what do you mean by frame something in ways that are aligned with what teenagers already care about? And one of my favorite examples is a real life a case study of one of the most successful marketing campaigns in the US and one of the most unsuccessful ones. So the unsuccessful one was something called think don't smoke, and it's an anti smoking campaign from the late 90s, early 2000s and so when the tobacco companies lost the major class action lawsuit, then as a part of the settlement, they had to spend money on ad agencies to basically disseminate anti smoking ads targeted at teenagers. And so the campaign they came up with the tobacco companies was think, don't smoke, right? And adults everywhere were like, I love everything about this campaign. It's great because in an adult's mind, they're like, All right, well, why is the teenager doing something dumb that harms their long term health, but feels good right now they're doing that because they're not thinking. And so my strategy to get you to think is to tell you to think, okay, and then after I tell you to think, I'm also going to make it really easy for you and not just assume that only because you're thinking, you're going to know to not smoke, I'm now going to also tell you to not smoke. So it's like the logic from the adults perspective makes total sense, right? It's like you're not thinking. I tell you to think you're smoking. I tell you to not smoke. Think, don't smoke. Pat, you know, Pat self on back, give self award, right? But now think about that, right? And like it. And nobody thought it was an issue. Everyone's like, we love it.
Ned Johnson:But now
Dr. David Yeager:think of it from the perspective of a teenager, right? If somebody is telling you to think that implies that they think you're not thinking, right? So out the gate, it's an insult, right? It's a, it's a, it's an accusation that you're incompetent or unmotivated or that you have a moral character flaw, right? Or is something wrong with you, basically. And so the it's an insult, but then on top of that, it implies that I the speaker, think I have the right to tell you how to think or whether to think, right? So it's also an imposition in terms of the status difference. And so it, it's like two insults in one, and it's like the worst insults, right? Because it's a threat to both your autonomy and your competence. And that's just the first word, then you've got, don't smoke, which, of course, is a command. So it also implies that I, the adult, think I have the right to tell you what to do with your personal choices, right? And top of that, it kind of implies if you were, if there wasn't a status difference. If you were like an adult in charge of your own life, then you would reject this command. And so it's a it's a challenge to have you go out of your way to reject what I'm telling you to do, so that way you can reassert your autonomy and control. All right? So it's like the worst psychology you can imagine was think, don't smoke, right? And on average, what happened is that in areas where that ad played a lot, teenagers became more trusting of the tobacco companies. They thought smoking was cooler and higher status was a way to be an adult, and basically increased smoking. Despite millions and millions of dollars spent on those ads
Ned Johnson:in two in three short words, they managed to undermine all three pillars of internal motivation, right, to your point, they just whack the autonomy. They told them they're incompetent, and I'm sure it didn't do anything for the relationship.
Dr. David Yeager:Basically, adult logic is I've made it this far, therefore the choices I made and the reasoning and the logic that I used must have been wise and correct. I. And so if I'm going to go, if I'm going to be a good person, then what I need to do is to tell the next generation how to copy my logic and choices and reasoning. You know, it's really as simple as that, I think. But of course, that's terrible. Logic doesn't make any sense from the perspective of the teenager who really wants to feel status and respect. And so around year or two later, there was another ad campaign called The Truth campaign, and the Truth campaign was led by a kind of upstart at the time, smallish agency, later became a global super agency, but the time they didn't have major clients, and led by creative director was a guy named Alex boguski, who's a real, like, creative genius kind of guy, and he what he did is he went out to the skate parks and talked to kids who were smoking, and he asked him, like, don't you know smoking causes cancer? And they're like, yeah, when I'm 60, but not right now. And
Ned Johnson:then
Dr. David Yeager:they're like, well, it makes your teeth yellow. It's like, again when I'm old, but right now, it's great, but it's not sexy. And like, you're wrong about that I have sex all the time, specifically because I smoke. So, like, the conventional arguments from the health people were not compelling, and so bugged ski came up with an alternative where he basically said, we're just going to tell you the truth. And the truth is that tobacco executives and high rise towers have been manipulating you and trying to get you addicted, and then they laugh all the way to the bank, and they don't care about you, and people are dying, and all they care about is money that they're making. And so if you want to join a movement, you can stand up to these executives and protect other people like yourself. So it actually made the young people be the ones that have moral clarity. The young people were the ones who were joining together in a band to stand up for what's right. The young people were the ones who were competent and saw the right choices, not the adults seeing the right choices. In fact, the adults were corrupted and conflicted, and they were making improper decisions and using improper logic. So it's a total flip, right? It conveys the status and competence as existing in the young person rather than in the adults. And the ads depicted teenagers like flooding the streets in the anti smoking demonstrations, and it never says smoking causes cancer, right? And it never says don't smoke. It just depicts teenagers who've already decided that they're going to rebel against tobacco companies. Those ads drove smoking down in the United States, teen smoking from 30% to about 5% within a year or two, and it stayed there ever since. And I mean, this is something where decades went by and nothing but and they're like, I guess 30% of people are going to smoke at all times, and it will basically give it up, and then it drove it down. And it's a great example of how, if you can, like, basically poison the status currency of like, a deviant behavior
Ned Johnson:and
Dr. David Yeager:like, reframe the good behavior as high status. Then young people exert their own agency. They're self driven, in a way, to do the right thing without being told what to do, but because they perceive it as aligned with their values and goals.
Ned Johnson:It's a great example. I love the way that's framed. I'm going to pivot a little bit thinking from that to, you know, bring this towards towards parents and educators. Maybe jump in with talking about the wise feedback study. And I love how you frame this up as part of kind of parenting styles as well authoritarian, authoritative and laissez faire. Can you kind of unpack that a little
Dr. David Yeager:bit? Yeah. I mean, the the first point is really that, you know, when you see a baby crying or throwing a fit on the ground, right, like a toddler,
Ned Johnson:yeah, you're
Dr. David Yeager:not like, that's a bad kid. You know? I mean, maybe in your worst moments you are but, but ideally, you're not saying that. Instead, you're like, That kid's probably tired
Ned Johnson:or dysregulated. Maybe
Dr. David Yeager:the kid has to go pee, you know, or they're hungry, and it's like, We'll talk it through after you've had some protein kind of thing, you know. And I mean, to be honest, a lot of teenagers are also tired and hungry and have to pee, and so even to this day, that's a checklist in my head before I have a frank conversation with a teenager. But the main point I'm trying to make is that rather than seeing what we perceive to be a bad behavior in a young person and then saying, I'm just going to impose my will with harsh threats of discipline and punishment, and then that's going to get them to come in line to instead say, All right, well, what is the underlying need that's driving this dysregulated behavior, and if I can address that, then I'm gonna have a much easier time negotiating with them. And so you look at great teachers, for example, in inner city schools, like they're not going around with the baseball bat threatening everybody you know, like ruling with an iron fist, right?
Ned Johnson:Yeah,
Dr. David Yeager:they are first and foremost trying to not humiliate children. Because if you do that, if a kid knows that, even if they screw up, they will not be humiliated, they might be disciplined, they will not be humiliated, then they're kind of okay with a lot of punishment. Like, I guess that's what happens when I screw around, and it's a procedural justice point that if you, if you come across as respectful, and you meet basic needs for saving face, then people are actually okay with negative outcomes sometimes. And so you I just kept seeing this pattern where great leaders were not trying to impose their will with harsh threats of discipline. There were real consequences, but it was always in the context of this very humane sense of respect and and the affordance of dignity, I guess you could call
Ned Johnson:it.
Dr. David Yeager:And so that, once I started seeing that, I started realizing, okay, there's a good style, which is what I call the mentor mindset, and that's you're tough, disciplined, there's high standards, but you're very flexible, logistically supportive. You want someone to meet that standard, and so you do what it takes to help them meet it, and you work with them. And it matters to you, in a mentor mindset, why they're not already doing the right thing, or the healthy thing, or the wise choice, and then you troubleshoot with them, like in light of what's not already going well, that's the mentor version. But then you can start saying, Well, what if you got only half of that? Well, if you're all standards, no support, that's what I call the Enforcer, and that's a many people's defaults when they have this incompetence model in their heads, they're like, you know, teenagers lack self discipline and self control, so the only way they're going to do the right thing is through fear of punishment. And so that's that's enforcer, and another version is no standards, high support, and that's the person that's like, kids have been through so much. They're stressed out, they're traumatized, they're anxious. I just need them to know that I love them and care for them, and so I'm not going to uphold standards. There's not going to be any discipline. It's really just about care and concern, and
Ned Johnson:expectations are low
Dr. David Yeager:and expectations are low, yeah, and I call that the protector, because you're trying to protect them from distress, and that's your main goal as a as a leader,
Ned Johnson:the insights that you make, I think, map on to his work really well. Where he talks about his book is called breaking free of childhood anxiety and OCD, and that if I'm an anxious kid, it doesn't stay kid problem very long. It becomes a family problem. And then adults around me who are don't they don't like my anxiety because it's hard for them to tend to fall into either the protector and you make accommodations, accommodations, accommodations, which doesn't do anything to help me build capacity to handle these things that are, frankly, part of life, or they come down and say, you know, you're being such a nitty Ned. Get over. My goodness, anybody else can handle this, and that's just basically
Dr. David Yeager:enforcing, telling me to think differently, and the in between space on that is using supportive statements. I know this is hard for you, and I think that you can handle that. I have really high expectations for you. I know that I'm confident you can make them and I'll support and I'll help you in any way that I can, right? And it's just that's probably harder, it's probably easier to be full enforce or full protector. Yeah. I mean, I think for the anxious, I have one kid who has a lot of anxiety, and, you know, I think that the temptation is exactly as you said. It's either like, what are you doing? You're being a lunatic. There's nothing to be anxious about. Get over it. Or, okay, don't worry about it. I'm just, I'm not gonna uphold this standard. I'm not gonna expect you to do anything, because it's just too much work for me. In when you're having an anxiety fit. And, you know, there are times where a kid is like, all amygdala that you can't have a conversation with them and they need to chill out. But a lot of times when, like, before, they've really gone over the edge. You know, it's hard to say, No, you actually have to do this thing, but also walk the journey with them and make it easy for them to do the hard thing. And I found that certain key phrases in communication are really important. So to give you an example, I coach youth baseball. I coach two travel teams at a time, usually, and then a bunch of summer teams and fall nice and stuff. But, um, you know, get kids who like their mechanics was wrong. They're not gonna hit the ball like they wouldn't hit if it's a beach ball. And it's like you got to do the drill differently, and then that drill to change your mechanics feels bad because it's going against their muscle
Ned Johnson:memory,
Dr. David Yeager:and then it both feels bad and they're missing the ball a lot. And so I've learned you have to say things like, I care about you too much to let you keep doing the swing you're doing, because if you do that, you're not gonna hit it, and then you're not gonna have the fun of getting a hit. And. Standing on base and high fiving your friends, and it's like the hard work you do now to face that anxiety, to change your muscle memory, is part of both helping your team. So it's your contribution to your team. It's a noble sacrifice, and it's an investment in the future, thrill of success. And they have to learn how to reappraise stress and anxiety and difficulty as a sign of growth, rather than as a sign that they should quit. Yeah. So I think the big thing is that for a lot of kids, their instinct is to interpret frustration, difficulty, anxiety, worry as a stop signal, like, if you're deeply anxious about it, then you should stop doing it, right? And that's because dangerous things are things you should avoid.
Ned Johnson:Yeah,
Dr. David Yeager:you know. And so there's a reason why the human mind develops that aversion to harm and danger, right? But the problem is that when anytime you're learning something new and important, it takes you out of your comfort zone, and it doesn't feel good. And so if in the moment, you take the protector mode where you lower standards, then the kid never has the benefit of learning, like if hard then persist, rather than if hard quit, because you've taken the easy way out to make your lone life easier because you don't want to deal with an anxious, crying child. You child, but now you've deprived them of this, like really important life lesson that they're going to need a lot in their lives, because being successful is hard, especially in an AI age where you can outsource so much stuff. Similarly, if you if all you are is enforcer, then the kid never learns the lesson that when they persist through a hard thing, they actually get it, because all you've done is impose discipline, and they've never actually helped them to meet the standard. So again, you've wasted a crisis. And one of my big pieces of advice is like, as a parent, don't waste a crisis. And parents say this to me, sometimes they're like, I have so much going on. It's like the macaroni is burning. Like, we've got a repairman at the door. I've got to go to soccer practice. Like, when my kid's freaking out, that's not the time to have a Socratic dialog. No? Like, yeah, I get it. And 80 to 95% of all the time you will spend with your child is over when they leave the home at 18,
Ned Johnson:right?
Dr. David Yeager:And they're gonna live 6570, more years. What have you done with that time? Like, did you use every crisis as a chance to give them the gift of character or wisdom or resilience? And if not, then, like, what were you doing? You know, and I just feel like, I'm not saying it's easy, but it's also like life is hard, and so this is like you're preparing someone you love more than anything in the world to deal with the difficulties of life. And what bigger gift, what more noble sacrifice could there be as a parent? And I just think that's, that's why the attitude should be,
Ned Johnson:this mentor mindset of of like not wasting a crisis and helping them actually learn the right lessons. I first became of your work in reading Paul Tough years, the matter most which followed and really profiled the experience of kids going through going, you know, trying to get into college, and going through college, and persistent in college. And I know that a lot of your early work as a young professor, was around the shifting mindsets to help young people reframe struggle is just part of the journey, right? And with Dr Walton that, as I understand correctly, films of kids who are few years old, or maybe seniors in college giving messages to in first year students that yes, this is hard. Yes, this has probably been you've probably been bumpier than you expected. This is all perfectly normal. This will get better. And that seemed to make quite a quite a difference for folks, though, for a call from the book, it was short lived, but it seems to me that that because that was like, what one intervention, right for basically an hour where it's I look at this mentor mindset is a drip feed, a constant process of, yes, this is hard. Yes, you will struggle if you didn't have struggle. I mean, you're playing tee ball when you're 16. We're not playing tee ball, right. Of course, this is harder, because people throw the ball at you harder. It's harder to hit a curve ball than it is a straight line fastball, and all those times that you whiff, you get better at seeing the ball. You know, rinse and repeat, iterate, right? Is a constant. I mean, I almost think of this. I mean, I know you did early work with Carol Dweck. I meant, I almost look at this as the growth mindset with fertilizer, right? You know, with with it's not just you can get better, but I as an adult, as a parent, and here to help provide that support to help you get better.
Dr. David Yeager:Yeah. So a couple things. So one is just that Paul Thomas is probably my favorite education journalist, and I think his books are just criminally underappreciated. And here, here's the matter most, which is later retitled The inequality machine.
Ned Johnson:Machine is.
Dr. David Yeager:Is one of the best non fiction books ever, let I mean, certainly one of the best about education. And in that book, he's writing about an experiment we did at the University of Texas where, and it's just one part of a much larger set of stories where we randomized the entire freshman class at Texas to get version of the belonging intervention that I describe in my book in pre matriculation. So it's any time between like May and August. And what we found was that for the whole University of Texas, there was a reduction in the achievement gap of about 40% in terms of full time enrollment at the end of the year, end of the first year, the long term data ended up being complicated in the sense that there was missing data from the registrar and stuff. And so we actually haven't figured out the story. And I didn't, we didn't have it in time for Paul to fully write about it. So I just, I shared with him everything we had. I was showing all the data, but like, it was inconclusive, I guess I would say at the time. But subsequent studies, like we did an experiment, same intervention, about belonging with all the outgoing seniors at Urban charter schools. So this is like KIPP Yes, prep, mastery, achievement first, and we do find effects on graduation four years later, five years later, six years later, from a 20 minute belonging intervention we did in May of senior year of high school. Wow. And so the it is the case that, and that's especially true if they went into colleges that have higher graduation rates. So if you go into some like, big anonymous, open access university,
Ned Johnson:you
Dr. David Yeager:need more than like, a little message about belonging. But if you go into a place that actually does have resources that you may not avail yourself to, then a message about belonging can have a long lasting effect. So then the policy question is, all right, well, is the solution to then give the belonging intervention, you know, to more people and like, Yeah, maybe. But probably the better one is to surround young people with mentors and adults who are more chronically echoing that message, whether it's their first year college professors like, what if a student who's doubting their belonging all of a sudden has their intro chemistry professor and they're like, this is hard on purpose, because I believe in you, and here's how I'm supporting you, You know. And that's also happening in calculus, physics, freshman writing seminar like that would be great for young people. And so my research kind of shifted from thinking just about the mindset message in the mind of the kid
Ned Johnson:to
Dr. David Yeager:what can the adult chronically do in their language and relationships and and we actually, you said fertile. But we actually use the metaphor of seed and soil, that if you think of a mindset in the mind of the kid as a seed, it kind of needs a fertile soil to blossom in, and the soil is the norms and structures and supports in the institution, whether it's a university or K 12, or even the workplace. And so I think that is that is the frontier for a lot of this work, is to shift from just instilling a mindset in the kid to instilling micro community of relationships with mentor mindset adults who are more chronically helping you make better appraisals or interpretations of your conflict, frustration, stress, etc.
Ned Johnson:Can you talk for a moment about belonging, uncertainty? Because you talked here about belonging, but I found that concept again, first in Paul's book. So that's the first place I saw it. Such a compelling idea because you mentioned that we as parents don't want to waste a crisis. And young people are constantly going through processes of, you know, they're part of a friend group. They're no longer part of friend group. They go out for the baseball team. They don't mean. They blow the game. They, you know, get a bad grade. They embarrass on and on and on and constantly, constantly questioning, do I belong on this team with these friends and this family on this planet kind of thing? Can you explain the concept of belonging uncertainty?
Dr. David Yeager:Yeah. So, you know, it's funny, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, belonging wasn't really on anybody's radar, certainly not in higher ed or K 12 people thought that's like soft, fuzzy self esteem nonsense,
Ned Johnson:right, right, right.
Dr. David Yeager:And so it was even less on their radar to say, what should we do to promote belonging? And I think that because it was at the time, a new idea, or at least new in policy circles,
Ned Johnson:then
Dr. David Yeager:it got misinterpreted. And the way it got misinterpreted is to say that every kid should be walking around all the time saying, I belong, I belong, I belong, and that the way to help them feel like they belong is to tell them you belong, you belong, you belong. And so then you had in a lot of people might remember this, you know, a vice provost of student success would create the. Belonging initiative, and they would print out stickers with the school mascot on him, and he'd put it on the back of your laptop, and it would say, I belong or something like that. And like, I just never thought that was a good idea and anything was going to work. And I think the in part of the fundamental misunderstanding is that it's not just the conclusion that I belong, that's an issue, is the active questioning about whether I belong. That's really because just how the human mind works when we have open existential questions, it's very hard to pay attention to anything else, right? Like if you, if you are uncertain if you're gonna live to tomorrow,
Ned Johnson:yeah,
Dr. David Yeager:you know. Or, like, if you have, like, a nagging pain and you don't know what it is, like, it's very hard to focus anything else besides
Ned Johnson:that
Dr. David Yeager:until you have clarity. You know,
Ned Johnson:right?
Dr. David Yeager:Similarly, like, if you're dating somebody, and you're like, am I with the right person? You know? Like, you think about it a lot, but not only do you think about it, but then everything they do can be interpreted in light of that question, like they're they take a little bit too long to get back to you on a text message. It's like, well, maybe they don't reciprocate my affections. Maybe they're an unreliable person, right? Or they are. They're late for a date, you know? And you're like, Was that me? Am I unlovable, right? There's all it. Basically everyday events trigger bigger, more like looming, existential issues when you are uncertain of some relationship or of some information and belonging works like that too. If you show up on a camp college campus and you're like, am I at the right place? Well, now everything you go to feels like a referendum on that question,
Ned Johnson:yeah, the
Dr. David Yeager:pep rally and it's kind of lame, you're like, well, maybe I picked the wrong place, like I don't I'm alone on Saturday night, no one invited me to a party. You know, everyone else is having fun without me. Well, maybe I don't really fit in. I don't fit in because this isn't for me. My professor is overly critical and harsh. You know, maybe they're trying to show me that I don't belong. And so all of a sudden, any negative event starts feeling like a confirmation of this this looming uncertainty, and so that that concept of belonging uncertainty ended up being really useful for describing,
Ned Johnson:yeah,
Dr. David Yeager:negative cascade and the snowballing that causes people to, over time, say, You know what? This just isn't for me. I'm going to move on with my life.
Ned Johnson:And what strikes me is, you know, Paul makes the point that it's during periods of transition when we most experience that belong in uncertainty, and if our calling points out, it makes people vulnerable good and bad to new to new stories about themselves, right? So, you know, again, I show up and nobody talks to me. I don't get invited. Do? I do belong here? But then if you get that validation, that affirmation by someone who says, you know, I see you. I know you're having a hard time with this Ned, but you really do belong here, even though this is hard, right? You know that, that knowing that a young person is going to have that ambivalence, first showing up on campus, new hire at a job, and when you can both validate the concern and affirm that, yeah, you belong here powerful stuff, because they are open to vulnerable, but also open to messages that can either cement their place deeply, yeah,
Dr. David Yeager:and I think the reason this relates to what we've been talking about is that this is a social judgment you have to make, and it's so related to status, respect, prestige, reputation, etc, that you're in a developmental period where your social self is being negotiated and feels like your identity is on the line, your reputation, you know, your rank, your rank compared to others, like just, am I doing well in life in general? Right? It's feels uncertain to you. Then you're you're looking for and look out for information in general, in life, and then all of a sudden, you start college, which is framed in our society as a referendum on your value and worth as a person in general. That like it, it, it feels like, where do you get into college and where you're and where you graduate from will be something that people will use to judge you the rest of your life. And if you show up and it feels like it's going poorly, and it's actually not for you, and you're not going to do well, then it's not only a threatened threat to your academic success. It's a threat to your whole social self at a time again, where you're trying to negotiate that and so, where? So, what's the solution? You know? How do you help people navigate this? Well, what you don't do is give them platitudes. You don't just say you belong, I promise, right? Instead, like belonging is negotiated. In the context of actions we take. So I don't know, like, do you it What? What determines whether you belong on stage as a stand up comic, right? It's whether or not your jokes make people laugh,
Ned Johnson:right?
Dr. David Yeager:Right? It's not whether you are funny as a person. It's like, did your jokes make the audience laugh? So your your performance is directly related to your belonging. You know, like, what determines whether you belong in the Olympics, right? It's how good you do the Olympics and the and so there, it's not one to one that competence is belonging, but they're deeply related, especially when it comes to reputation, because reputation is usually what third parties perceive about your performance or abilities, and then and then your level of performance or abilities that like lives on in other people's minds as they think about you or describe you to others,
Ned Johnson:or earn Prestige as you talk about,
Dr. David Yeager:yeah, so the anthropological concept is called Earth prestige. That you know in our evolutionary history, when humans are wandering the Savannah, you know you're the extent to which the tribe will keep you around and bring you protein and help you sleep safely, like safe from animals depends in part on what you do for the tribe. So for men, it's mostly, you know, throwing spears. And for women, it was, it's like both gathering and child rearing and like, well, they're doing a lot more than the men, frankly. But like, your ability to do those things well directly determines whether other people are going to sacrifice their lives for you and bring you protein and protect you and so, like, that's a deep seated fear in the human brain that gets triggered around adolescence. Because when you're a child, no one looks at a three year old and says, Oh, you didn't kill a wooly mammoth today. Get out of
Ned Johnson:here, right?
Dr. David Yeager:Like you just can take it. You can take your belonging for granted as a child, but in adolescence, it's earned, and that's what's at stake when you start college. Is what if I'm publicly outed as incompetent and not belonging, and all these people will know it, and that fear consumes us and causes us to doubt ourselves even more,
Ned Johnson:I'm wondering your thoughts around earn prestige and school in that it strikes me that you know, for adolescents, they're both trying to fit in right, find their tribe on the Savannah, and they're trying to stand out and do something that's exceptional, that makes them worthy of that prestige, And to the degree that schools, you know, are sometimes kind of narrow in what they ask. I mean, everyone's more or less studying the same things. Everyone's trying to get the same grades. I mean, standing out can be a little bit can be a little bit challenging there. How do you earn prestige if you're getting all A's, but so is everybody else? Yeah. So you'd think that school would offer lots of opportunities
Dr. David Yeager:for earned prestige,
Ned Johnson:yeah, and
Dr. David Yeager:it often does for subset of people, you know, for in high school, kids who end up in a varsity sport, right? Or are they captain of something or and then a subset of students get A's, and then they, you know, get some prestige from that. But a lot of you know, and a lot of like regular public schools. Like, 30% of kids are failing most of their classes freshman year. And so, you know, they're those kids are not thinking, Oh, my root to status is to get straight A's in all AP classes. Like, there's this, we close the door on kids really early age. And so then they're, they're like, I guess there's no root for status in this classroom or school for me, and so what is the point of trying hard in school, right aside from the threat of getting yelled at, but I already don't care what these adults think about me, so it's actually not a threat to get yelled at by them. So like we've we've in most typical schools in America, we have not created a route for status and respect through academics for half a third of kids, there is an analogy to like, if you study who bullies the most, so Ferris and fell when you did these studies, it's it's people who are like the top third of status in the hierarchy, where they think they can get a little bit higher or prevent themselves from being lower, but it's not kids in the top of the first third, you know, the 33rd percentile. They're not because they don't think it's possible to get to the 99th percentile of status. You know, it's like you have status, but not enough. Those are the people who bully the most. Similarly, the kids who try hard in school usually are ones who think I've got enough going for me that I at least have a shot of being in some tier of successful students, however that's defined, but it's not the kids who think they have no shot that's in a typical school. And on top of that, most assignments that are created are arbitrary. They're a teacher. Or sometimes just a curriculum designer's guess of what abstract skill might be useful in some discipline later. But they're very rarely a reflection of what someone would do in a given field. What you do in high school chemistry class is not what chemists would do, right, right, right. You do in physics class is rarely what engineers would do. And so there's, there's no prestige to be gained except impressing your teacher. But most kids don't care about impressing their teachers like they're they're happy to impress their teachers, if,
Ned Johnson:yeah,
Dr. David Yeager:if that happens, but it's not a driving force. And but teachers forget that, because teachers in again, I was a middle school teacher, so I think I can speak to this mentality. Every single teacher, at some point, finished regular high school, and they're like, I'm gonna go to more school, and then they finished that, and then like, I'm probably gonna go to more school, and then they did that, and they're like, where should I get a job? And then they get a job in school, yeah. So they they love school so much
Ned Johnson:it works for them.
Dr. David Yeager:They're like, unlike 98% of their students, right? So the idea of doing your homework to please the teacher makes total sense to teachers, and it does not make sense to most kids. And so that's why I really love, I don't know what you might call project based learning, or just like meaningful work, where the status currency is that you matter in your community, or you've done something impressive for people your age. You know that it's very different from like, I've completed some arbitrary tasks to impress a teacher, you know, or to make my parents get off my back, there's this classic thing that, you know, people talk about doing work and getting good grades as a way of like, having your teachers, you know, like you and respect you or whatever. Yeah, and, and we kind of forget that, as I've been saying, like, those are, those are constructed in the minds of teachers,
Ned Johnson:and
Dr. David Yeager:that your main outcome, of course, is pleasing the teacher. And that is, I think, a big reason for this common complaint that if you get A's in school, you're a goody, two shoes nerd. That like, it's not the case that kids dislike being competent and doing well, right? Like it? Because it just on the face of it, why would it be the case that a student who gets A's is made fun of for being a nerd in a goody two shoes? That's weird, because they're also, like, kicking ass at something, right? So you think it'd be prestigious, like you, you know, you understand the mysteries of the physical universe. You can integrate a function in calculus, like you can you can analyze, like, the greatest literature in the history of the human race, like there's cool stuff that you could be doing with your academic knowledge in school. So why would having that academic knowledge and doing well be associated with the low status reputation of being goody two shoes. And I think it's primarily because the tasks we tend to give in school are mainly designed to please teachers on an arbitrary scale. They're not actually, authentically, independently important outside of the classroom. And that's kind of where I was going with this.
Ned Johnson:Is that, yeah,
Dr. David Yeager:we, what happens is we, we force being good at school to be low status, because most of the school work is pleasing teachers and doing what teachers say. And then when kids don't proactively do it, we say they're short sighted idiots who don't care about their future, who are lazy and want to offshore, outsource everything to AI. And we we just adopt this enforcer mindset of blaming them or the protector, where we don't ask anything of them. And I think, just like we've been saying all along, the smarter way to do it is to reframe the academic tasks as having legitimate status currency in the value system that makes sense to adolescents, rather than the adult provided value system. That was, that's my main point.
Ned Johnson:I love that. I love that in what I think about applying that, you know, how do you how does one re structure or reimagine learning spaces so it meets these needs that adults have for young people to develop skills, but also these needs for agency and, you know, and autonomous engagement. There are a number of school systems that we've gotten caught wind of who are really trying to bring student directed learning in school. The kind of easiest model that I've seen effectively implemented is kind of like a flex Friday, like, you know, Google would have its genius day where, you know, Monday through Friday, I'm coding, and Friday, I can do whatever I want. And the school is working, working within in Southeast Ohio, it's basically Appalachia, Appalachia, and kids can do pretty much whatever they want on Friday, so long as their parents sign off and some teacher checks a box, you know, and then they can go and do whatever, whatever they want. And. The end, the idea that cognitive development only comes from, you know, I don't know, balancing a chemical equation, or, you know, writing about, you know, Shakespeare's Sonnet as though there, there isn't the same kind of engagement of problem solving, decision making, for whatever that activity they're doing on a Friday. And was interesting to me is that these kids who would otherwise not want to come to school at all, the only entry fee to be able to do what you wanted on Friday was to show off Monday through Monday through Thursday. And lastly, to your point, it strikes me that I'm doing whether I'm learning to weld or I'm creating a rock band, or I'm doing social service or, you know, whatever environmental or whatever it happens to be on Friday, we're not all trying to check the same boxes as 123, scatter, and we all go in 1000 different directions. And I can arguably get higher status doing this thing because it's the thing that I want to do, because I'm good at and I'm not having 17 other people fighting me for that opportunity. Yeah.
Dr. David Yeager:Yeah. I think so there's this idea that, you know, status is viewed as a zero sum game, and that feels true when there's one pyramid of status, and there are schools and workplaces and sports teams where there's one pyramid for status, and then what happens is people at the bottom of the pyramid I will never get up there. I'm not even gonna try. These people adopt all kinds of crazy, unethical, bad behavior to get up in these and the people at the very top, bully, shame or whatever, in order to reassert their status and protect resources. Yep, yeah. And so in a world in which there's a zero sum single pyramid, then it feels like the only strategy is adopt one of those three things that I just described, and then it's this toxic world that everybody hates. Turns out, though, that if you just have multiple pyramids for status, then people can collaborate and like, Oh, awesome. I want to help you get at the top of your pyramid. That
Ned Johnson:sounds great, because I'm not. I'm not threatened by yours. I'm not threatened by your
Dr. David Yeager:success, because you're not on my pyramid. You're on your pyramid, you know. And so there's a guy, I don't know if you ever published this, but Dan McFarland is a famous sociologist at Stanford, and he's an education researcher and super interesting, like savant kind of guy, and he used the Add health data set, which is a very famous data set that was collected first in the mid 90s, where they have people nominate who they're friends with, and they do much math to create a social network analysis. And then you can basically describe the structure of the social network in a high school, and some high schools are single pyramid high schools, and other high schools are multiple pyramid high schools. And the multiple pyramid ones, it's like, you could be the coolest at AP classes, you could be the coolest at band, you could be the coolest at theater. You could be, you know, and it's kind of like, if you're bad at one group, you can kind of hop to another pyramid, and then you still have reason for hope, and you could even create your own pyramid, and like, there's all kinds of flexibility. And he basically looked at the level of bullying and found that there's way more bullying in single pyramid schools versus flexible multi pyramid schools. And I've never forgotten that. And then I've always thought, well, what if you extended it to there are as many status pyramids as there are people in the high school that, literally everyone could get better and improve to the point where they kick the most ass at the thing that they want to kick ass at. And that's what I think about these, like, really project based schools,
Ned Johnson:yeah, yeah.
Dr. David Yeager:Is that like, like, like, we still want you to go up and do impressive stuff, but it's not at the expense of other people, because it's about you being awesome, like, globally, like, in general, not just in the hierarchy of the school.
Ned Johnson:Do you or he have a sense of whether the multiple periods, the multiple pyramids, create the culture of, you know, mutual support, low bullying, blah, blah, blah, or whether the healthier culture leads to those multiple pyramids. Do you have any guess as to the direction?
Dr. David Yeager:I would say if there's already a certain kind of culture,
Ned Johnson:yeah,
Dr. David Yeager:then it's way easier. But I think that culture, culture is emergent from what people actually do. It's not declared, you see this, a lot in schools will be like, here's our culture. And then the kids like, No, it's not, you know, and like, after Princeton's like, we have a culture of well being. It's like, No, you don't like, you have a culture of 600 hour weeks so you could get a job at Lehman Brothers, you know, and like, at the same time, what you believe does shape your behavior, because a lot of culture defining behaviors. And I'm, I'm signing research. Now I'm summarizing research by Hazel Marcus Mary Murphy. Like people who study culture, they were thinking of as an emergent property of a group and it but it is shaped by beliefs that are held in common, because beliefs influence tacit behaviors when there's no clear rule. So when there's no clear law, then people just do what makes sense to them, what makes sense to them. To them is rooted in what they believe about themselves. In the world, you basically, you can, you can start a process of culture shift by directly targeting belief systems. And you can also start a culture shift by just making certain behaviors more likely, and then new members of the culture perceive those behaviors and they invent a narrative about them. So a lot of cultures like you actually see people do stuff, and then you tell a story about it, and then you pass that story on as an oral tradition. So I actually, I think it's possible for any organization to change these kinds of cultures with the right kind of strategy. And furthermore, part of
Ned Johnson:what
Dr. David Yeager:I wanted to write about in my book is who are the people who, even in otherwise cutthroat or enforcer mindset cultures, still manage to do the mentor mindset stuff, and they always, they figure it out. You know, there's like the NBA is best shooting coach. You know, NBA is totally cutthroat, and it's a total but he's his name is Chip England. He creates a total culture of growth and learning. Sergio Estrada, this teacher I write about, it's like an otherwise low income school where the teachers are constantly yelling at kids and sending them to the office and disciplining them or lowering expectations. He's got this super hard physics class that students are passing college level physics every year. So you know,
Ned Johnson:I would love to talk about him a little bit because, and I also appreciated the setting the record straight on, on the narrative of Jami Escalante, yeah, and this is back to the point we made before, of, of this is not this mentor mindset is not it's not a single intervention. It's an ongoing process, right? Can you talk about those both a little bit? Because I'm always thinking about, you know, what you've done with this book, and how do, how do educators, parents schools, and how do they think about this in a more systemic way? Because, well, it wasn't, it wasn't the single, you know, it wasn't the single shining light. It was broader than that. Yeah, yeah. So just briefly, you know, for anyone who's a teacher my age, you know, I'm 44 so,
Dr. David Yeager:you know, the movies we grew up on in the 90s, right? Were like Dangerous Minds. You know, stand and deliver. Stand deliver a stand by me, I forget, like, Freeman,
Ned Johnson:yeah,
Dr. David Yeager:and, you know? And just the Jaime Galante movie and, and then the, anyway, all these movies about the tough, demanding teacher that gets the most out of their classroom. And it's inspirational, and it's meant to, like, counter the stereotype that poor kids can't learn, et cetera, or black and brown kids can't learn. But then what they almost always conveyed is that the only way to have success in an otherwise hopeless situation is through extreme fear and discipline. And so people my generation who went into teaching. You know, we're drawing all those cultural scripts whenever we're becoming first year teachers, and we don't know we're like, if you came straight from like, I don't know Duke or something, or you've just been reading philosophy, and now you're in Manhattan, you know, New York City, at a public school, what are you gonna do the kids like, I'm not doing this work. And so you draw on this cultural script that you saw on a movie. And I don't think it's landish to suggest that that's what's happening for a lot of people. And so one thing I did in my my book is actually went back and reanalyzed some of these stories. Now, some of them are fictional, right, like the Michelle Pfeiffer Dangerous Mind story, but stand and deliver with about Jaime Escalante, you know, as a real guy like he was in Southern California and at a school where it was very low performing. At its peak, he had 120 students taking calculus, and most of them were passing with a three or above. And so what happened? Well, it turns out that the whole narrative was a narrative about a single super teacher who would like have study sessions in his kitchen on Friday night, and it was staying up all night and stuff. But the reality is he dipped into middle school and hand picked students in seventh grade to be in his calculus track by senior year. And then he had a summer program where they were learning math all summer from like graduate students, etc, that he got from UCLA and stuff. And it was also three super teachers. It wasn't just him. There were three teachers.
Ned Johnson:So.
Dr. David Yeager:Yeah, and I learned this later from URI tries man, who's a mentor of mine. But they actually started the school year senior year. So there was like five years of prep before they got to calculus. Okay, so they were caught up, and then they get to calculus, and they would have more of an open lab, and the students would decide who they best connected with, and then they wouldn't actually separate into three different class sections until, like, mid October. And so there was those whole like, relational part. It wasn't just the impossible standards, it was like feeling everything out, like, who's gonna, who's gonna, like, this teacher's sense of humor? Who's gonna want this gentle hand, who was gonna be okay with this kick in the butt. And so it was like, super high supports, summer programs, tutoring, you know, after school, but also this, like, deep relational commitment. And it was multiple people. And so when people like me became teachers, we thought, Oh, I'm supposed to be like, stand and deliver and get five years of math in one year through insane commitment. And it turns out that a there was a huge structural component, and B was multiple people working in concert. And I always think about that, because teachers just blame themselves for not being able to achieve these amazing gains. And the reality is, it's very isolating work, and it's very hard to do alone.
Ned Johnson:Wow, it said, I mean, it's such a and such The good point that students and adolescents generally may also blame themselves for not being able to achieve great things, when what we're really talking about here is both culture and and structures and systems of support. And I love that you ended with, your book ends with, with Yuri Treisman. I mean, I rereading that chapter as in Paul's book as well. I mean, I was led what kind of singular educator he is. But then to your point, you know, what you shared is, it's not a singular educator. These are, these are learnable, replicable processes by which, you know, we can all be well, be the mentor that young people need.
Dr. David Yeager:Yeah. I mean, I think you know, when Paul wrote about URI and his book an equality machine, and I was sitting next to him for those two years, and I was attending URIs classes because I was planning on writing about him. But this is 10 years ago now, and one of my main lessons was he's just and he's one of my best friends, and he's awesome, but he's such a weird guy in the sense of, like, stuff he does in class. And I'm like, I don't think, like, I can't part a teacher, yeah, I don't know it's replica. Like, can imagine going to a teacher prep program and being like, all right, I studied the world's greatest calculus teacher, and it's very important that you copy this, because what he does is he has a ceramic dog named Chester, a Dana that sits onto his desk, and he talks about it like it's a person the entire year, and never lets on that he knows it's actually a ceramic dog. And then his students write postcards to it and buy it presents. And they also act like it's a human being and like that's just a weird thing to do. You know,
Ned Johnson:that's a Ryan, but
Dr. David Yeager:he does that stuff and so, so part of what spurred me in the book to go out and find these other great mentors was to see who are people who have in spirit stuff in common with Uri, but have alternative ways of accomplishing their goals, so that way it's more scalable and replicable.
Ned Johnson:I love it
Dr. David Yeager:so well.
Ned Johnson:Thank you for sharing so much. Thanks for this book, and obviously the work that you go do ongoing basis, helping young people adolescent become who they want to be in the people who are trying to support them. Any any final thoughts before you run away? You
Dr. David Yeager:know, there's a lot of exciting stuff happening in education, and there has to be because of the changes in AI. And I think, you know, you're going to see these debates about teenagers are just going to take shortcuts because they're impulsive and selfish and short sighted, and therefore we need to impose stricter discipline on AI tools, you know, and so that people are gonna be like, you're never going to contain teenagers work arounds, so just let them use all the computers all the time. And I think the challenge is going to be in that mentor mode of distinguishing between times where they do have to think for themselves, and it's going to suck, and they're not going to like it, and they're going to wish they could outsource it to AI, and they can't, because we care about them too much, and other times where we're like, we want you to you to use AI in ways that we haven't even thought of yet. So it's the distinction between learning for future use versus a super powered skill that helps you give me a have a competitive advantage in the workplace. And if we don't trust that teenagers have the ability to distinguish among those, then we're going to impose our will, and then they're going to hate us for it, or we're going to deprive them of real learning opportunities. So I actually think a big challenge in the age of AI is actually to figure out framing of AI tools in a way that motivates them to learn what they need to do in an analog way.
Ned Johnson:And.
Dr. David Yeager:Motivates them to incorporate AI in a smart way, to scale up their impact.
Ned Johnson:I love it, and I would and with as much as we need to understand AI better, your book points out so well we should start by trying to understand adolescence better.
Dr. David Yeager:Yeah, I agree.
Ned Johnson:I really appreciate the conversation. I love your work. Thanks for making time.
Dr. David Yeager:All right, thanks.
Ned Johnson:Some takeaways for school. The tasks we tend to give in school are mainly designed to please teachers on an arbitrary scale. They're not authentically, independently important outside of the classroom, so the idea of doing your homework to please the teacher makes total sense to teachers, and it does not make much sense to kids. The smarter way to encourage interest in school work, then, is to reframe the academic tasks as having some legitimate status currency in the value system that makes sense to adolescents rather than to the adult. Provided value system on motivation. If it's our worldview that young people are the worst, then no amount of giving you tips and tricks is going to actually help you be more effective. Now, if you're rejecting the incompetence model of the adolescent, and the real trick is figuring out which goals they want to pursue, then the trick for you as an adult, for motivating adolescents, is to reframe behaviors that we know are good for their own long term self interest. If an adult goes into protector mode and essentially lowers standards to protect the kid, then the kid never has the benefit of learning that if something is hard, persist rather than quit, it is tempting, then for us as adults to take the easy way out, to make our own lives easier, because we don't want to deal with an anxious or crying child. Great leaders don't try to impose their will with harsh threats of discipline. They allow real consequences, for sure, but always in the context of a very humane sense of respect and affording dignity. Lastly, when you talk with an adolescent in terms of goals that matter to them right now, you can take a brain that looks like it's unmotivated and actually make it among the most motivated of adolescent brains. I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the self driven child podcast. Hey folks. Over the past 25 years, I've talked to countless parents of high school age students who care deeply about their kids' education and how they deal with stress and the pressure to succeed. It can help parents to work with a team they trust won't just pile on more pressure to achieve better scores and grades. That's why I founded prep matters in 1997 to create a different kind of experience for test preparation and academic tutoring. This podcast and my books with my friend Bill Stix root reflect our company philosophy and approach to helping students. If you have a high school age student and would like to talk about putting a plan together, please get in touch with us. Visit our website at prep matters.com, or while your kids may only text, you might want to actually talk with a person. If so, you can reach us at 301-951-0350,