Parents Association Meeting March 19, Dr. Denise Pope: SOS: Stressed Out Students

Transcription

1 Parents Association Meeting March 19, 2008 Dr. Denise Pope: SOS: Stressed Out Students Barry Lemieux opened the meeting by pointing out that the most recent PA Income and Expense Statement and the minutes from the last PA General Meeting ( Purpose Larger Than Self: How Your Student Benefits ) have been posted on the web site. He stressed that the Showcase is still in need of volunteers. He introduced Jan Lachman, Vice Chair of Decorator Showcase 2008, who advised that the Showcase house is 16,000 square feet, and therefore more than the usual number of docents will be required. Although additional volunteers are needed across the board, there is a particular need for additional docent volunteers. Barry then introduced Nancy Murray, who is coordinating the Summerbridge 30 th anniversary celebration, to be held at UHS on Thursday, March 27. Nancy encouraged all parents to attend the celebratory event, and asked that anyone planning to attend, return the response card, as it is important that the committee know how many people will be attending. Barry then introduced the evening s speaker, Dr. Denise Pope, PhD. Dr. Pope has been a lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education for the past 8 years, and is the founder and director of the SOS: Stressed Out Students project, which attempts to identify and counter the causes of academic stress and increase student health and integrity. She is a three time recipient of the Stanford University School of Education Outstanding Teacher and Mentor Award. UHS is committed to working with Dr. Pope to try to identify ways of making learning less stressful and improving the overall student experience at UHS. Dr. Pope began by mentioning that she had addressed an allschool assembly earlier in the day, and had posed the question to the students: How do you define success? She asked the parents to consider the same question. She has found that responses from the students usually focus on getting into a good college, achieving fame and making money, whereas responses from the parents identify more fundamental issues such as attaining happiness and fulfillment, building confidence

2 and being able to successfully address challenges. Dr. Pope pointed out that the discrepancy between these two response categories is in part a result of parents sending the wrong message to their children regarding their expectations. Dr. Pope reflected that she had at one point taught English to students at Fremont High School, and was disappointed by their lack of enthusiasm or passion for any academic subject. Her concern inspired her to focus on the study of curriculum in the context of student engagement. As a research project, she began shadowing five high school students of varying backgrounds for a period of one year, focusing on patterns and goals in the academic engagement of these students. She briefly described the school experiences of three of these students: Kevin, who carried a calculator at all times in order to re-calibrate his GPA and weighted GPA based on the results of every test or paper, took frequent practice SAT s, raised his hand in class every 7 minutes, (having determined that this indicated to the teacher an interest in the class material), and was consumed with grades. His goal was to do well in school, to do school, to get through with the best possible result on paper, but with no interest in knowledge itself; Eve, an Asian student whose sole goal was to gain admittance to Harvard, who felt intense peer and parental pressure, and managed to list 26 activities on her resume. She took 4-5 AP courses every year, and existed on 4 hours of sleep per night; and Michelle, a drama student who felt compelled to drop honors and AP courses because of the demands of drama and ended up bored with her classes and extremely concerned about how colleges would interpret her resume. Based on her involvement with the students she shadowed, she reached the following conclusions: 1. Students attempt to set up alliances with teachers, in order to convince teachers of their purported interest in a subject, while not actually engaging in the subject. 2. Students multi-task in class, doing homework for other classes, texting, etc., thus denying themselves the ability to really engage with the subject being taught. 3. Students engage in rampant cheating. Studies have shown that 75% of high school students cheat on at least one test per year,

3 while 90% admit to copying homework. 80% of honors students admit to cheating on a regular basis. 4. Students who lack the fortitude and motivation to engage in this high-stress competition, choose to opt out, sabotaging their potential academic achievement as a protection mechanism. National and local findings have demonstrated that the system is creating robo-students, students who cheat, lack academic engagement and creativity, lack the ability to solve problems, and have a high remediation rate. A University of California study has found that 50% of all students entering the UC system, nothwithstanding its rigorous entry requirements, require remediation courses in math and english, due to students inability to retain knowledge. Employers are reporting that young hires from even the best colleges lack the ability to think creatively, to operate in a corporate environment, to take responsibility for their own work, and to engage collaboratively with peers without attempting to undermine them. Colleges are complaining that students lack resiliency, cannot meet the normal challenges of a college experience, and cannot focus on academic achievement. It is not unusual for college students, who are supposed to be on the road to adulthood, to call home every day, or for parents to complain to college faculty about their children s grades, or even in extreme cases for parents to accompany their children to post-collegiate job interviews. There is an across-the-board concern that today s students lack the basic skills to become successful adults. The health consequences of this situation are stark. There have been significant increases in rates of anxiety and depression among teens in the last five years, and suicides related to teen academic stress have increased 25% of teens report being depressed. These issues primarily affect girls, for whom collaboration and socialization with friends is often co-existing with feelings of intense competition with these same friends. Studies have shown that affluent young women and men are 2-3 times more likely to binge on drugs and alcohol, and to self-medicate. There is a concomitant increase in the use of study drugs, adderall and ritalin, which improve one s ability to concentrate. Sleep deprivation is also a significant issue.

4 Dr. Pope s work with Stanford is focused on increasing the mental and physical health of teenagers, and re-emphasizing the importance of integrity. There are multiple stakeholders in this process: schools, parents, students, researchers and the broader community. Dr. Pope is working not only with high schools, but with elementary schools and even kindergartens. She is at the same time working with universities to re-vamp the use of SAT s and to reexamine the value of AP courses. High schools which adopt the SOS system examine the following issues: 1. Homework and AP policies: how much homework is given per night, is there a more optimum schedule for final exams, is there a way to change the structure of the school to alleviate stress. 2. Project-based learning: are there ways to increase the opportunities for project-based learning, which leads to increased engagement by students in the subject matter. 3. Alternatives for student evaluation: are there other forms of assessment which can be adopted in order to more comprehensively evaluate the quality of student work. 4. The broader skills needed for success: are there ways to increase emphasis on leadership skills and integrity. Dr. Pope had the following advice for parents: 1. Listen to your child and your gut. Do not communicate to your child concerns regarding where they will go to college. Emphasize that there is a good school for every child; the focus should be on finding the school which will allow your child to grow and flourish into a happy, well-adjusted, productive adult. 2. Re-emphasize that there is no connection between the college your child attends and his or her ability to get a good job. There are many, many ways to be successful. More important than where a child goes to college, is their ability to learn while there, and to graduate being able to successfully problem solve. 3. Define your expectations for success. Look at the subtle messages you are sending your child i.e., ask your children

5 how about their day, what they learned, rather than what grade they got on a test. Attempt to eat at least one meal a day as a family and discuss topics other than school academics. 4. Avoid over-scheduling, and make time for the family to engage in common pursuits such as games. Realize that there is not time for everything, and that there will be tradeoffs. 5. Limit your child s media and screen time. Although computers, cell phones, ipods, etc. are an obvious fact of life, your child is less likely to work out problems with others on a face to face basis if he/she primarily engages in what passes for communication via electronics. If necessary, ensure that computers and all electronic/phone devices are turned off at a certain time every night. 6. Honor your child s health above all else, in all situations. 7. Debunk college myths. Look at college through the lens of what is the best overall environment for your child. Sometimes community college makes sense as a first step, in order to allow students to experiment with college, grow up, and get a sense of what is important to them, before they transfer to a 4 year college. Parents should also spread the word about how counterproductive the current system has become, and talk about the importance of creating passionate, engaged leaders. Pressure the system to change. Right now the SOS system has been adopted at 45 schools around the country; it is a growing movement, supported by corporations, universities and the medical profession. SOS is partnering with the American Academy of Pediatrics to increase the focus on stress-related childhood and adolescent illnesses, and is broadening its communication with not only school administrators, but also school and club coaches, and all who work with children and teens, to perpetuate the message. Universities are working with SOS, as they become frustrated with intelligent young people who come to them burned out, exhausted and cheating. SOS is supporting the

6 work of colleges such as MIT and Tufts to change admissions criteria, de-emphasize SAT s, and develop alternative college ranking systems to the U.S. News and World Report. In summary, young people have lost the ability to be creative and to problem-solve. They are being denied a traditional high school experience by the emphasis on grades, which has resulted in their doing school rather than learning. As evidenced by a recently-published CDC study, there is at times an inverse correlation between student health and GPA. A connection must be re-established between teens and caring adults. Real connections must be re-established between students and teachers, and social and emotional skills must be emphasized as much as academics. At the conclusion of Dr. Pope s remarks, Alex Lockett mentioned that UHS will be administering the SOS Student Survey to students at the end of April. This will require parent permission for each student. The results will be correlated over the summer and will be available in the fall.