ww2.kqed.

org

http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/11/12/how-can-students-be-successful-in-a-high-stakes-world/

How Can Students Be Successful in a High Stakes World?

Katrina
Schwartz

When asking an audience of parents what attributes they value, Stanford educator and author Denise Pope heard
things like critical thinking, creativity, and well-being. Most parents indicated they did not value popularity,
acceptance to a prestigious college, or being good at an extracurricular activity. Yet those are the very qualities
that the students Pope studied most often listed as the keys to success.
The disconnect that were seeing means were not necessarily agreeing with the communitys values, but we are
part of the community, said Pope. In researching her book Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of
Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, Pope shadowed students at elite schools to try and
understand their lives and the pressures they face. She found that students value extrinsic qualities like grades
much more highly than their parents. The students perceive the education system as a game to be played. Many
said they were doing school in order to get to college, not necessarily to learn.
Students anxiety around succeeding has detrimental effects on learning and takes many forms. Pope found that
more than 30 percent of high school students and 15 percent of middle school students were doing more than
three and a half hours of homework per night, but their perception of its usefulness was very low. Only 20-30
percent of students felt homework was useful.
The disconnect that were seeing means were not necessarily agreeing with the communitys values, but we are
part of the community.
On top of that homework load, Pope found that 85 percent of students participate in extracurricular activities that
take up a large portion of time. On average, middle school students spent almost seven hours a week on
extracurricular activities and the average high school student spent ten-and-a-half hours. Between school,
homework and extracurricular commitments, high school students on average get less than seven hours of
sleep per night, when they should be getting nine.
Even more troubling, many students are cheating. Out of thousands of juniors and seniors that Pope surveyed,

only five percent said they did not cheat. They know its wrong, but they feel that they dont have a choice given
the pressure to perform, Pope said. They become robo students, jumping through hoops to reach a list of
external goals that theyve been led to believe will lead to happiness and a successful life.
Kids are getting into Stanford who are coming in already as robo students, Pope said. What they had to do to
get in was be the overachiever, but in their courses they cant think outside the box. Students arrive as good testtakers, but they cant solve complex problems, think critically, communicate, problem solve or be creative. There
has been very little transfer of learning to other areas, and no emphasis on cultivating a love of learning, Pope
said.
[RELATED: How Do We Prepare Our Children For What s Next?]
Many of these issues can be remedied with deeper engagement, which leads to overall student well-being. What
we found is that when students are fully engaged they achieve more and they cheat less, Pope said. They also
exhibit less stress, anxiety and sad or angry behavior. As an educator I want to try to stimulate the full
engagement, she said.
To reach that ideal, Pope has come up with the ABCs of engagement; affective, behavioral and cognitive
engagement. Affective engagement is showing interest and enjoyment in the work, behavorial engagement is
putting in the effort, completing assignments and showing up. But cognitive engagement is the part thats often
missing from school, when a student finds value and meaning in the work. Without the affective and the cognitive
the behavioral is really just spinning the wheels, Pope said.
RESTRUCTURING SCHOOL FOR SUCCESS
Pope works with more than 100 schools across the country to try and make changes to structures and practices
that could help mitigate some of the competition and stress that students often feel. The key elements to examine
are students use of time, project and problem based learning, alternative and authentic assessment, whether
students feel they belong and that people care about them, and then education.
The school schedule and how it affects student time is extremely important. Pope often recommends that schools
move away from a school day that includes multiple transitions, a typical model for high schools. It takes 13
minutes to transition to a new subject, Pope said. Class is half over before students really settle in. But if the day
is structured with far fewer transitions learning can go deeper and be interdisciplinary.
[RELATED: Why Kids Need School to Change]
If schools restructured their schedules and departments worked together, educators could do more project or
problem-based learning. Were talking about the kind of projects that students see are relevant, meaningful,
rigorous and where students have a voice and choice over what they work on, Pope said.
Schools also need to reevaluate how and when they give exams. We tend to take snapshots of students instead
of making a whole portfolio, Pope said. You want to get student learning over time. For her, cumulative tests are
not effective because retention of the material is very low. Instead, she suggests teachers offer lower stakes and
more frequent assessments of various kinds. That way all learners can demonstrate their knowledge and theyll
have to do so in ways that dont only highlight memorization skills.
These structures absolutely affect the health and well-being of students as well as engagement and
achievement, Pope said. The relationship that teachers cultivate with students is also very important. Even little
things like rescheduling a test if students have big assignments due for other classes on the same day, shows
them a teacher cares.
POPES STRESS RELIEVERS
There are a few things Pope would like to see more educators try in order to reduce the stress on students.
Test optional college applications: There are already more than 1,000 colleges and universities that are test

optional students dont have to take the SAT or ACT to qualify. Pope hopes that trend continues, with more
emphasis put on a portfolio of work, recommendations and essays.
No grades: Commenting on a piece of work forces students to internalize changes rather than focusing on
exclusively on the grade. Move away from the grade conversation, Pope said. The standard argument has been
that grades allow colleges to quickly compare students. But Pope said even state schools like the University of
California system will soon be able to evaluate applications that dont have grades and it will go a long way to
convince applicants that schools are looking at the whole person, not just a number.
Reconsider assessment. Pope recommends high schools take a hard look at their assessments to determine if
they promote cheating. Have an assessment that allows them to revise and collaborate and cheating will go
down, Pope said. And if teachers remove the expectation that students turn in perfect work then students wont
feel they have to either cheat or be cheated.
A simple thing educators can do to understand what their students are going through is to shadow them. Some
administrators tried this approach. They realized how exhausting it is to go from class to class, keep it all straight
and then go home and do homework, Pope said. It promoted the whole school to reevaluate not only the school
schedule, but the amount of homework and whether that work tied back to the core goals of each class or not.
Popes most important suggestion to raise and educate healthy, successful and curious learners is to focus on the
whole body. Kids who walk or bike to school do better than kids who drive to school, Pope said. Thats because
theyre getting their bodies ready to learn. If the stress and anxiety of school is causing students health problems
or to exhibit signs of depression, everyone needs to re-prioritize.
Explore: Big Ideas, assessment, Denise Pope, Nueva School, whole-child approach
3 Comments
Related
What Kids Need for Optimal Health and School Engagement
Facing Race Issues In the Classroom: How To Connect With Students
New Report Challenges Beliefs About the Value of AP Classes
Teaching Kids How to Learn Without Study Drugs
More Progressive Ways to Measure Deeper Levels of Learning
Why Kids Need to Move, Touch and Experience to Learn
Powered by