The Saratoga factory: student stress and achievment

At an ASB meeting in November, some members posed a question for student debate: Should Saratoga remove secondary GPA awards from the graduation program?

A few students argued that the awards — Very High Honors, High Honors and Honors — implied that certain students were better than others, and further enforced the school’s (some say) “overly competitive” atmosphere. Others argued that such an omission wouldn’t give students who had worked hard their due credit. And, unsurprisingly, one student asked: Do people even read the graduation program?

The debate seemed to highlight an already visible division in the community’s attitudes toward academics. One faction believes in competition — increase number of AP classes offered, use test preparation companies and focus on academics. The other side believes that students are already overly stressed, and the solution is to limit AP classes and decrease the focus on academics.

It’s tiger mom Amy Chua vs. Denise Pope, a battle happening in American campuses over the brains of American students, or “the future of America” (though take one close look at us and you might want to flee).

Pope, a Stanford lecturer and the author of “Doing School” (she recently visited the McAfee for “OMG! I forgot to apply to Harvard!!”), argues that academic pressure over-stresses students, leading to a loss of integrity and true learning. Saratoga faculty, and many students, have echoed Pope’s concerns. A few notable examples of this philosophy at work: (1) The creation of the Media Arts Program, with its emphasis on group projects; (2) limiting AP courses taken by underclassmen; and (3) The Wall of Rejection, on which students can anonymously post college rejection letters.

This all in contrast to, say, China where test scores are posted next to names and a poor test score means a stern call home. There, competition is maximized, and if another’s higher test score makes you feel worse about yourself, you put your head down and study until you beat that person. Or, you fold under pressure. The Chinese system isn’t known for being forgiving.

The practice of limiting AP classes is an important point in this debate. Senior Robert Eng, who competes in inter-school competitive science competitions, said that Saratoga’s policies actually handicap science teams — limiting APs in turn limits the knowledge the science-hungry students can acquire.

“By the time we can get good at the more advanced sciences, we’re already seniors, so competing versus students with more education is difficult,” said Eng, who is also science club president.

Likewise, some argue, a student at The Harker School, a private school in San Jose, can take AP English classes and AP Chemistry sophomore year, making his academic transcript look far more “academically rigorous” than a Saratoga student’s on the college application. The line of thinking is: School should challenge students. Why are we so scared of doing that?

However, one has to wonder if at times the cry for more APs is naught but the cry of the elite, wanting more to distinguish themselves from their “less-worthy” peers.

The problem is that if AP classes are added, students will feel compelled to take them. Colleges look at students based on what they were allowed to take — a college will not penalize a student for not taking AP

Government if the school doesn’t offer it. By, for example, adding AP World History, a large portion of sophomores will feel compelled to take the class simply because they don’t want to seem less able or ambitious.

It’s a case of competitive coercion: By offering the class, the school effectively forces students to take the class or take a perceived hit on their college applications.

So, should the school add more AP classes? Perhaps the better question is: Is the school prepared to force some students to take harder classes, in exchange for giving some students additional, perhaps needed options? Simply put, adding APs will increase options, but will also force some to take classes in which they have no interest.

The fundamental contradiction with our system of education is that colleges will always rank, will always compare students side-by-side, will always create competition. The feeling of competing with peers is never more evident than in college application season, causing the question “What does she have that I don’t have?” For all that the school might try to de-emphasize competition, competition exists and pervades our very culture, as too many view college as the end-all be-all for their high school education.

“Take classes that you are capable of taking.” This advice, while sound, will never truly take root in many a student’s mind because of college. School is about learning. Getting into college is about beating your peers.

The debate between the Chua-ites and Pope-ites hinges on this contradiction. As the Chua-ites know, the bitter truth is that going to school simply “to learn” doesn’t always impress colleges. Taking Physics instead of AP Physics (with an AP tutor) doesn’t reflect positively on your college application. Spending your time playing an instrument instead of in test preparation is unlikely to help you unless you’re a spectacular musician. Taking a lighter course load because you value your health means handicapping yourself for college admissions.

Colleges want to see that students are “challenging themselves.” They could care less about the consequences, because there’s no convenient notch or statistic for someone’s health or well-being.

The contradictions are many, and our culture is obviously flawed. We live in a society where many of our parents tell us: “He went to a good college, be like him.” Is anyone surprised when the resulting student treats high school as a mere stepping stone?

For the Chua-ites, it’s simply strategic, smart, to improve a student’s chances at colleges, because this is the achievement our culture values. The Pope-ites will inevitably fall behind in this “race,” because the emphasis on “learning for learning” doesn’t work with college.

So here’s where you expect me to point out the solution. You want me to say that we shouldn’t be obsessed with getting into college. We should be learning for the sake of learning.

And so I said it. But I don’t believe it. Truly, I hate the way Saratoga academics can divide us at times. I hate the way students feel compelled to take on harder schedules to just feel “smart.” Yet I also recognize that the dreams of college drive so much learning, so much struggling and fighting and succeeding, that it feels wrong to just disparage them. Competition is a necessary fuel, and in the “real world” competition can become much more intense than anything in academics.

Perhaps, in this sense, Saratoga High has the best of both worlds, precisely because neither the Pope-ites nor the Chua-ites are happy. The two cultures balance each other out — our school is neither a “slacker” school nor one in which competition is overly vicious. (See: China. It could be far worse). Of course, this equilibrium might shift, but not without outrage on one side or the other.

Move either way, and the pitchforks come out.