Escaping the High School 'Twilight Zone'

By Joseph P. Allen & Claudia W. Allen

Educators have long known that adolescent academic motivation declines precipitously beginning in 5th or 6th grade and spirals downward into the high school years. Although most motivated students plow through (albeit driven more by anxiety than excitement), one-quarter of teenagers still fail to graduate on time each year, despite decades of education reform efforts.

As psychologists, we understand the temptation to attribute this motivational decline to innate (and likely immutable) developmental traits of teenagers. But our recent experience evaluating some remarkably promising interventions suggests that the fundamental problem lies elsewhere—in a profound mismatch between teenage biology and school structure. And this problem is far more solvable than we might have imagined.

Modern brain research increasingly confirms what those who work with teenagers have long known: Adolescents are primed for action, stimulation, and relevance. They seek action as they hit peak physical capacities and energy levels; they seek stimulation as the reward centers in their brains develop; and they seek relevance as they gain the capacity to take on adult-like tasks, both mentally and physically. Yet these normal (and healthy) adolescent traits collide head-on not only with the fundamental structure of secondary schooling, but also with evolving societal trends extending the length of the teenage “waiting period” to truly enter and act...