Pressure of Being Successful

This week’s article summary is Is Drive for Success Making Children Sick

The number of students—including in elementary school—who suffer from anxiety and depression shared in the article is shocking.

Equally shocking is the biggest cause: school.

As I read the article, I kept coming back to our SAIS accreditation discussions this year and Trinity’s affirmation of the importance of utilizing progressive, child-centered teaching methods that celebrate the process of learning, social-emotional development, and individual voice and choice. Our ultimate goal is to have our school environment foster, not negate, children’s innate curiosity and natural inquisitiveness. 

Also, similar to the article a few ago on the importance of unstructured recess and  outdoor time, Trinity’s practice of limited homework gives kids ample time to play, to be creative, and to explore their own interests. 

Although Trinity is not immune to the external pressures  below that can lead to student anxiety and depression, it’s gratifying to me as an educator that our long-standing mission and philosophy are centered on children and their cognitive, emotional, and physical health. 

Rather than turning kids off to school or having them strictly look at school as a means to an end, Trinity truly does “foster in our students continued curiosity., creativity  and confidence for school and life."

Joe

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Stuart Slavin, a pediatrician and professor at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, knows something about the impact of stress. After uncovering alarming rates of anxiety and depression among his medical students, Slavin and his colleagues remade the program: implementing pass/fail grading in introductory classes, instituting a half-day off every other week, and creating small learning groups to strengthen connections among students. Over the course of six years, the students’ rates of depression and anxiety dropped considerably.

But even Dr. Slavin seemed unprepared for the results of testing he did in a high school in California’s Silicon Valley. He found that 54% of students showed moderate to severe symptoms of depression. More alarming, 80% suffered moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety. There is a nationwide epidemic of school-related stress. 

Expectations surrounding education have spun out of control. On top of a seven-hour school day, our kids march through hours of nightly homework, daily sports practices and band rehearsals, and weekend-consuming assignments and tournaments.

Each activity is seen as a step on the ladder to a top college, an enviable job and a successful life with students ground down by the constant measurement in schools under pressure to push through mountains of rote, impersonal material as early as preschool.

Yet instead of empowering them to thrive, this drive for success is eroding children’s health and undermining their potential. Modern education is actually making them sick.

Nearly 33% of teenagers told the American Psychological Association that stress drove them to sadness or depression — and their single biggest source of stress was school.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a vast majority of American teenagers get at least two hours less sleep each night than recommended — and research shows the more homework they do, the fewer hours they sleep.

At the university level, 94% of college counseling directors said they were seeing rising numbers of students with severe psychological problems.

At the other end of the age spectrum, doctors increasingly see children in early elementary school suffering from migraine headaches and ulcers. Many physicians see a clear connection to performance pressure.

In some schools, however,  teachers are re-examining their homework demands, in some cases reviving the school district’s forgotten homework guideline — no more than 20 minutes per class per night, and none on weekends. Research supports limits on homework.

Paradoxically, the pressure cooker is hurting, not helping, our kids’ prospects for success. Many college students struggle with critical thinking, a fact that hasn’t escaped their professors, only 14% of whom believe that their students are prepared for college work, according to a 2015 report. Just 29% of employers in the same study reported that graduates were equipped to succeed in today’s workplace. Both of those numbers have plummeted since 2004.

Contrary to a commonly voiced fear that easing pressure will lead to poorer performance, St. Louis medical school students’ scores on the medical boards exams have actually gone up since the stress reduction strategy was put in place.

Working together, parents, educators and students can make small but important changes: instituting everyday homework limits and weekend and holiday homework bans, adding advisory periods for student support and providing students opportunities to show their growth in creative ways beyond conventional tests.