Overachievers

Recently I had to read a book called The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids. The book is written by a journalist who follows nine students from one of the most prestigious private schools in the Nation. The kids are a mixture of Junior and Seniors and chronicles their entire school year. The book is in in depth look at the tremendous amount of pressure we put on our kids every day through extracurriculars, GPA, SAT's, AP courses, College Applications and Report cards. Essentially the book points to these factors, and the intense importance placed on them by parents and teachers, as the reasons that we are seeing one of the most burned out generations to date. The book goes on to show that all of these things are essentially not anywhere near the importance we place on them. For instance, 90% of CEO's of the fortune 500 companies did not go to an Ivy league school. In addition the pay difference between Ivy League Graduates and graduates from state schools in the same field is almost nothing. So while we pressure and pressure them to bring their SAT scores up 50 points and overload them with AP workload we are essentially only putting unnecessary stress on them; and little by little we're ruining them. It's proven that cheating both in the class and online is on the rise. Kids feel they NEED to get good grades, and all the while the quality of learning is being sacrificed. Cramming, memorizing and plagiarizing are all common practices, why? Because 1) kids feel enormous pressure and 2) it's the grade they value, not the work. As teachers we need to change the paradigm. By putting the value on skills like critical thinking, collaboration and cross-discipline connections. If we show our students that they are the most important part of our classroom, that applying the themes of a novel to their own lives is more important than a quiz and that having a class discussion is far mre important than anything I have to say, than we will see a change in the culture of schools. Less work transfers to more in-depth work that students can take pride in and care about. It all sounds a bit idealistic, but when ideals are obtainable, why not shoot for them? By pushing students to interact with their material and promoting personal growth we will be preparing students for college. And by acquiring these life long learning skills and raising their self efficacy, instead of their blood pressure, we will be in turn preparing them for success; be it at Harvard or HACC.