Some are searching for remedies to relieve the pressure in today’s high schools
IN LEXINGTON, high school teachers have worn clown noses to class to lighten the atmosphere.
In Newton, they’ve instituted homework-free weekends and are training kids in yoga and meditation.
That’s a start, I suppose.
But changing the culture in pressure-cooker high schools is going to take something bolder.
This week, US News and World Report released its annual list of top high schools in America, ranked by standardized test scores and AP-class enrollment, and, likely, by general misery. It’s wonderful to emphasize achievement, but at some point, the pressure to excel takes too great a toll. And lately, some districts are starting to acknowledge that students are sleep-deprived, overwhelmed with make-work homework, and convinced their entire futures depend on taking five AP classes instead of two.
The extent of this problem is a matter of debate. Tom Loveless, who studies education at the Brookings Institution, believes the pressure is self-imposed and overstated. Parents in certain communities know what they’re getting their families into, he says. And today’s kids don’t have it that tough, relatively speaking; a century ago, he notes, many teenagers were working full-time on farms or in factories and mines.
“Our teens today are about as well off as kids have ever been in human history,” he said. “And yet we’re wringing our hands saying, ‘Oh, these poor kids.’ ’’
But Denise Clark Pope, a lecturer at Stanford University’s graduate school of education, says she’s seen increased stress among students across demographics. It’s fueled, she said, by an increased reliance on standardized tests, more stringent college admissions, and more pressure from well-meaning parents who ask, “How'd you do on the history test?” rather than, “Did you learn anything interesting in school today?”
Pope hopes to change schools from within. Through an organization called Challenge Success, she meets with parents, students, and teachers, encouraging them to set limits on homework, place value on free time, and look beyond name-brand colleges. It’s a hard sell, she concedes.
She starts by asking parents how they measure their kids’ success. They tend to answer with “happiness” and “fulfilment.” Yet what they’re valuing, at least in the short term, she tells them, is test scores, grades, and prestige.
Read the full story in the Boston Globe.
Denise Clark Pope is a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success.
For more background, read "Are AP courses worth the effort?"
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