Fighting for Equity in Education

Education Should Not Be a Race

“The competitive pressures placed on young people in school are damaging many otherwise promising lives” according to a high profile US educator.

In an editorial published in the journal, Science, last week, Deborah Stipek, dean of Stanford University’s school of education, criticises the competitive culture that surrounds young people in many high schools today in the United States and elsewhere.

She says that young people are under great pressure to distinguish themselves in various ways that are seen as critical for future success. They are under pressure to gain entry to advanced learning classes, win science prizes, and excel in arts and sports and in other ways.

Stipek writes that research on motivation makes it clear that focusing attention entirely on performance, whether grades or test scores, destroys whatever intrinsic interest the subject may have. It can lead to “debilitating anxiety”, “a culture of cheating”, and “take the joy out of learning. She says:

....how many potential Nobel Prize winners have written off science before the end of high school because their only exposure to the subject had been in test preparation courses rather than in classes that delved into meaningful questions?

Stipek calls for a change in teaching. Extensive research shows that students will become more emotionally engaged in learning if some simple principles are observed. These include connecting subject matter to students’ personal lives, providing opportunities for students to participate in solving or designing solutions to multi-dimensional problems, doing experiments, debating the implications of findings and working collaboratively.

Schools can also help by giving students multiple opportunities to earn a good grade (such as by rewriting papers or retaking tests), drawing attention to the knowledge and skills that students are developing, not to grades or scores, and if all learning and skill development is celebrated, whatever the level.

She says that schools should offer ample opportunities for students to get extra help, make sure that at least one adult is paying attention to every student’s emotional needs, survey students regularly on the sources of their stress and make sure this feedback influences policies, and offer opportunities for students to pursue academic interests unencumbered by performance concerns.

Her editorial concludes:

Problem-solving skills and critical analysis have become infinitely more important than being able to answer the typical questions given on a standardized test. A valuable science of teaching and learning exists that should guide efforts to improve students’ interest, engagement, and intellectual skills, as well as reduce the debilitating stress that is becoming epidemic.

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