Does school have to "hurt" to be good?

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
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What are the pros and cons of the prodigious academic and non-academic demands placed on students at certain boarding schools? My daughter reports that she had four hours of homework each night as a ninth-grader. Is that excessive or is it good for her? We sometimes hear stories of students at such schools being sleep deprived and, hence, physically and emotionally frazzled. Yet we also hear stories of students who are usually tucked-in by 10:00 and leading healthy, balanced lives. Of course, students vary in study efficiency, and some are able to accomplish more in two hours than others can in four–so time invested doesn’t tell the whole story.

I have heard it said many times that after making it through such programs students find the first year of college to be relatively easy, while their peers from less rigorous high schools are struggling with the workload. And that’s fine. But are there any distinct advantages to being overwhelmed as a fourteen-year-old ninth-grader as opposed to an eighteen-year-old college freshman? Don’t the students who initially struggle with the college workload adjust in fairly short order?

In it’s recently released strategic plan, Lawrenceville submits the following as a “Potential Initiative”:

“Without compromising rigor, reduce the grinding pace of life for all members of the community so that even within this richly energizing community, a reflective and measured existence is possible. Impose fewer requirements on students so that their passions can increase engagement and drive their choices.” (from, “A Vision for the Future: Lawrenceville 20/20,” p.9.)

One has to wonder what has prompted Lawrenceville to consider such an initiative. And how exactly does a school “reduce the grinding pace of life” without “compromising rigor”? When they speak of “fewer requirements” are they referring specifically to math and science–or, perhaps, to the arts and athletics?

And consider this take, as reported on the “Salon” website:

"In 2013, UNICEF rated Dutch children the happiest in the world. According to researchers, Dutch kids are ahead of their peers in well-being when compared with twenty-nine of the world’s richest industrialized countries. The U.S. ranked twenty-sixth, just above Lithuania, Latvia and Romania – the three poorest countries in the survey.

As an American mom and a British mom, both of us married to Dutchmen and raising our kids in the Netherlands, it’s hard not to notice how happy Dutch children are. ***Childhood over here consists of freedom, plenty of play and little academic stress.

When we compare notes with friends back home, we hear horror stories, often to do with draconian selection processes to get into schools, starting at the tender age of three. These days there’s even such a thing as “good” or “bad” birthdays and “red-shirting” to ensure children have a head start over the other children in the class. In America, parenting has evolved into a highly competitive, exhausting business and schooling into a warzone with children drilled like miniature soldiers.***

But in the Netherlands, childhood is unencumbered with any of these particular concerns. Education has a different purpose: the route to a child’s well-being and their individual development. Schools in highly-populated areas use a lottery process to select students, rather than competitive entrance exams and heart-wrenching interviews. To get into most college programs, all a student needs is to pass high school exams at the right level. As a result, there is no real pressure to get straight A’s. In order to come to grips with the Dutch school system, we had to let go of a lot of things we’d been brought up to believe in and re-examine what education was all about." (Rina Mae Acosta and Michele Hutchison. “Dutch kids aren’t stressed out: What Americans can learn from how the Netherlands raises children.” “Salon,” March 26, 2017.)

I once asked a teacher at our local Waldorf school why some prep schools are so rigorous. He replied essentially that the market demands it. That would seem to be true on the face of it. That is, certain highly energetic, motivated students will welcome such rigor, and their parents are willing to buy it for them. The schooling experience for these kids is manifestly designed to go beyond the mere transmission of knowledge. These rigorous schools are serving the additional purpose of nurturing battle-hardened-and-tested individuals, who, if they don’t burn out, should be confident in their ability to function at full effort over the long haul–which would have to be a big plus in the most demanding and competitive work environments.

I’m honestly not sure what to make of this. Is “too much” work, really too much? Or is too much never enough? I am curious to hear what other parents have to say.

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@DonFefe You raise excellent questions to which I think the answer is clearly NO. However education has evolved so much as has the rest of our society and culture over the last 25, 50, 100 years, such that the sheer numbers of people going on to college and post grad has severely “deranged” the market. i.e supply and demand effects “price.”

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“Is “too much” work, really too much? Or is too much never enough? I am curious to hear what other parents have to say.”

Very good question.

If you look at statistics regarding the number of US high school students who have been diagnosed with stress-related illnesses, and the number of US high school students who are taking medications for anxiety, depression, ADHD, anorexia, or other illnesses, then the answer I think is pretty clear. We are putting way too much stress on our high school students, and their health is suffering.

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I have said this before on here… it all depends on the person. I have a kid who is exceptionally bright but does not have a competitive bone in his body. He attends a well known, wonderful school that is certainly not considered among the tippy-top elites on this board. He is thriving. My other kid is also very bright and being a different person, craves the rigor, handling any pressure or academic stress well - also thriving. As far as “learning from the Netherlands” and all that, it always just irritates me to hear because it is simply the other side of the same coin and ignores individuality.

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I’m with @judbeeski. One size does not fit all when deciding how much is too much. Especially when there is choice, I think it’s essential to select an academic program that fits the child’s needs and goals, personality, learning style, interests, etc. E.g., my kid is content with 4 hours of homework but is quite overwhelmed by social pressure. To her, 20 hours of homework “hurt” less than having to talk to 20 people.

As for the U.S.-Netherlands comparison, I find the Salon piece one-dimensional. Here is another perspective: https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/03/born_well.

I can think of a dozen factors other than homework load that contribute to the worse outcomes of US high school students compared to their European counterparts. (BTW, the gap doesn’t exist in elementary school, it grows after that.). Some examples are low teacher’s pay in the U.S., which translates to low teacher quality; great disparity in school curricula, standards, and quality, including homeschooling option, which is illegal in the Netherlands and much of Europe; and even high-school sports, a very American obsession, which greatly cuts into time spent on educational activities.

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According to Wikipedia, the Dutch system is tracked at the age of 12, on the basis of intelligence tests. So, the “relaxed” nature of the school system may relate to the school system’s structure.

Also, Salon writers seem to have friends in very high-pressure US districts. There are many parts of the USA that are neither New York or San Francisco.

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It would be hard to disagree with @judbeeski and @GoatMama about the importance of finding the right fit for one’s child; hence, having a variety of choices is always better. And @GoatMama makes a good point: stress is where one finds it–be it academic, social, or athletic–and I obliquely acknowledged that when I included “non-academic demands” in the first sentence of my original post.

But I wonder if the article from “The Economist” is all that pertinent to the matter at hand. The “Salon” article specifically addresses the happiness of children and stress-free schooling–while the article from “The Economist” addresses social mobility and the affect that parental affluence has on the quality of a child’s education. These are two very different things, and the issue of better or worse “outcomes” for American high school students compared to their European counterparts is not really addressed. In any event, the writer for “The Economist” is hardly chauvinistic: “On the whole, I’m pretty sure the system that does more to maximise the opportunities and capabilities of the most of its kids isn’t the American one.”

I would add, as an aside, that tracking in the United States has been more widespread than suggested in “The Economist.” I grew up in an affluent area, and tracking began in the fifth grade: apart from ninth-grade social studies, I never saw a non-college-track student in any of my classes again. Here, we don’t condition our children’s future on one big test, but rather on countless smaller ones–but in the end it would seem to be more or less the same thing.

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Getting back to the issue of the pros and cons of a demanding, high-pressure educational environment, it might be instructive to consider the reviews that appear on the BoardingSchoolReview website. Here is a representative selection of replies to the question, “3.) What might you have done differently during your boarding school experience?”

From “Choate Rosemary Hall - Review #1”:
Enjoy every moment. There’s going to be pressure everywhere you go after high school - it’s finding a college, then finding an internship, then finding a job or grad school, and so on and so forth. High school is the time to be social, find friends, and find your passion."

From “The Hotchkiss School - Review #4”:
“My biggest advice for anybody going to boarding school is to enjoy it. Because everyone’s very ambitious, people tend to forget the beauty around them. Hotchkiss is an amazing place and people tend to forget that in midst of the academics, sports, etc. It’s important to take a step back once in a while and be grateful for everything and to just to enjoy the view.”

From “Phillips Academy Andover - Review #1”:
“I would have made a more decided effort to extend myself to some of my peers and try to build relationships with them because everyone at Andover is incredibly interesting and influential for one reason or another. There were people that I really became close with only a few weeks before graduation, and I remember wishing that I had been closer to them earlier in my Andover career.”

From “Phillips Academy Andover - Review #2”:
“I probably would have made more of an effort socially. Balance is key and keeps you happy and sane.”

From “Phillips Exeter Academy - Review #1”:
“Looking back, I don’t think I would do anything differently. I would suggest that kids going to boarding school make the most of relationships they form with their friends and sometimes let homework go unfinished for another hour to spend time with their friends.”

I should note that while every reviewer valued the demanding nature of their boarding school experience, in none of the reviews that I read did anyone say that they wished it had been more rigorous or that they had spent more time studying.

One more thing: lest anyone get the wrong impression, I don’t have a horse in this race. My kid complains about being overwhelmed while she’s at school (as does most everyone else, she says) and she complains about being under-engaged at home, despite having an exhaustingly full schedule. Hmmmm.

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Very quickly - Thai might have some relevancy? https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/how-to-land-your-kid-in-therapy/308555/ How pain free should your target for your kids or can it be in real life?

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This is where I was going with my comment: The U.S. ranks poorly on happiness and overall well-being in all ages, not just in school-age children. A lot of this has to do with income inequality, lack of social safety networks, limited upward mobility, etc. In Europe, where college is free, kids don’t experience the same pressures to overperform academically in order to secure that precious scholarship or financial aid without which they would not be able to go to college. Instead, students are focused on exploring, finding their passions, discovering makes them happy and what they would like to do later in life. Further, without ludicrous income disparities and pay gap, kids don’t feel pressured to become a banker, lawyer, or doctor to have a chance at decent life. Other societal features, such as free health care, paid family leave, generous vacation time, etc. add to better quality of life and less stress for adults and children alike. Basically, there is so much more at stake for U.S. students than European ones. It IS a race to nowhere, but much of it is dictated by larger socioeconomic forces.

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@goatmama socialism makes happy kids? Hard to see that through the smoke wafting across Europe

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^ I’m not entering that argument. You can check the annual surveys on happiness and well-being in the world and draw your own conclusions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

My personal experience, as someone who has been educated in Europe, lived and worked in several European countries, and then raised a family in the U.S., is that social democracies (not the same as socialism, although such nuances seem lost on many Americans) are more conducive to a wholesome existence than unfettered capitalism.

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@GoatMama admirably and eloquently outlines factors that no doubt contribute to the pressure that many American students feel to “overperform” academically. She raises important societal issues that should concern us all. And while the socioeconomic factors she mentions certainly contribute to the academic stress that American students are subject to, my original query relates specifically to the “prodigious academic and non-academic demands placed on students at certain boarding schools.” That is, I’m asking solely about the pressure imposed by the school.

Similarly, the article that @panpacific cites, though interesting, deals with a broader issue than the one I raised.

(Perhaps I was wrong to cite the “Salon” article in my original post, as it doesn’t specifically address the stress on students that results specifically from the demands placed on students by the school, itself. I cited it merely to point out that, as the Dutch system demonstrates, admission to college need not entail the pressure-cooker preparation that our competitive system encourages.)

So, please allow me to try again. What do we make of Lawrenceville’s potential interest in reducing “the grinding pace of life for all members of the community so that even within this richly energizing community, a reflective and measured existence is possible.”

I suppose I am once again asking my perennial question: what, exactly, constitutes a quality education? Or, to narrow it just a bit, are students at the most demanding schools really being pushed to their limit? And, if so, is that bad or good? To ask it another way: what are the implications of an exceedingly demanding and rigorous boarding school education, both for the individual and for our society as a whole?

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“If you look at statistics regarding the number of US high school students who have been diagnosed with stress-related illnesses, and the number of US high school students who are taking medications for anxiety, depression, ADHD, anorexia, or other illnesses, then the answer I think is pretty clear.”

We have been conducting some “fact finding” about the dorm environment my daughter was in relative to the school as a whole.

Alcohol use/abuse is pretty widespread among HS juniors and seniors no matter where you go. What was NOT expected was the rampant use of unprescribed Adderol. As one student explained:

“After dinner [most weeknights] I’d drink a cup of coffee after dinner and take some Adderol. Then around 11pm or midnight, I’d take Melatonin to get some sleep.”

My daughter’s pediatrician (at Tufts NEMC) is familiar with many of the Massachusetts BS and day schools. She believes the schools are in denial about the levels of anxiety and stress on their campuses. Those schools are being ranked by their acceptance records at highly selective colleges, that’s what parents are demanding, there are plenty of docs willing to write prescriptions even if the kid doesn’t seem to exhibit ADD symptoms, and many school administrators seem willing to adopt a DADT posture towards stimulant abuse.

But pick your poison. I asked a student at Boston Latin School (where immense homework assignments are routine) if kids were also abusing Adderol. “Not really.” When asked why not, “They cheat.” Shared homework assignments, crib sheets, etc are widespread. BLS operates on a six day schedule, so that a student who has math first period one week will have it later as the schedule rotates. Most instructors give the same quiz or test to each section, so after the first period, everyone in the later sections gets clued in. There are also a number of “guts” [easy courses] that students select to pad their GPA. One French instructor teaches very little useful French, but gives out lots of “A’s”. The school gets very few complaints about this teacher.

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You seem cynical about day and boarding schools so I wonder why are you considering having your daughter return to that environment. I get what you are saying about renting a house in the burbs but what you are describing seems like it’s not better. My daughter’s school recently participated in a study and knows of the stress and other assorted activities being engaged in by students. They are not turning a blind eye. Fwiw, so we have our ADHD drugs straight it’s adderall.

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@DonFefe I think there are so many tertiary issues to your question that it becomes impossible to pin down exactly what the issues are–education for a great many is no longer about being a well rounded, well-educated critical thinker but is simply a means to an end. i.e get into Harvard and invent Facebook and be a billionaire. Or get into Penn and go work for a hedge fund… We went into this BS thing with fairly open eyes, We wanted our kid to have more opportunity to engage with the teachers and other students: to build relationships, to meet a diverse group of students and to be challenged in a meaningful way. Some of these schools definitely treat this like a trial by fire rite of passage which seems unnecessary but I suppose to justify their superior status in the pecking order of institutions maybe they feel that is the price? But it is all complicated but the raging increases in diagnoses of ADD and ADHD and so on.

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I think Lawrenceville has seen the negative effects of too much rigor and plans to adjust.

NO, I don’t think schools need to be overly rigorous, with so many hours of homework resulting in reduction in needed sleep or free time to explore one’s passions.

There are many brilliant kids on the BS campuses. They would be better off if they offered more free time to spend on developing passions…give the artist more time for their art, the inventors time to invent, the computer coders time to write apps, the athletes time to lift weights, etc.

I don’t think all schools are this way; and I think the ones that are not are onto something.

In public school, kids are taking 6-16 AP classes (yes, 16 in states that allow them to start AP as freshmen). These kids do not need all those courses, and they cannot fully benefit from every course if they are overloaded. That’s the “Race to Nowhere” and it’s not about success based on unique strengths or passions, but rather based on competition. The colleges and the College Board need to reign this in.

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@sunnyschool here here. Best post so far!

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I lived in a country where opportunities were limited, lack of resources holded you back, I came to this country with barely nothing, only thing I could my kids work hard and play hard, despite lack of $$$$$$$, kid went to attend elite boarding school, lot of work and immense stress, but they always prioritize what they want to do rather what we want them to do, I ask them will they do anything different, only one answer more time with friends in prep school, but when you are poor, you have to work harder than others be white, black, brown or any color.

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Aww, I never got that many likes @Center and others. <3

To add, the problem with taking so many challenging courses simultaneously, is that the depth of knowledge suffers. The kids seem to be whizzing through AP classes and learning the material in a shallow way. The colleges seem to know this, and more selective colleges don’t give credit…they just let you take a higher course, or some make you take the course anyway. I’ve heard some stories where kids getting 5 on AP Chem are getting a C/D in Chem 2 in a competitive college, because they exempted Chem1, but turns out they didn’t reallllly know it all.

We chose a school (or maybe it chose my son :wink: that truly believes in quality of life…I think they are on to something and perhaps at the forefront of a new trend.

In public schools, the problem is, that they must sort out the students, and one of the ways they do that is # AP classes and “weighted averages” for taking these harder courses. My other son will have a rigorous schedule next year with an earlier start time to fit in his AP class (no choice if you want that class)…and it does worry me. But to end up top 20 percent - with AP’s in the areas he is strong (probably 5-6), and any hopes of merit aid, it’s necessary.