School pressures cause many students to seek tutoring

In most schools, the students who receive tutoring are at the bottom of the class, but here, already proficient students often receive tutoring in their AP and Honors classes.

Because they feel their pressure and workload borders on excessive, many students search for extra help in order to cope with the difficult curriculum.

Junior Ethan Gelfand can testify to the school’s academic intensity and blames the school’s workload for the the plethora of students who receive tutoring.

“I think that for a high school to treat themselves like they’re a college is way too rough for kids our age and [it’s] really unfair,” Gelfand said.

Gelfand went on to say that a line has been crossed in terms of the workload students at the school should be receiving.

“I think preparing is one thing, but occupying our lives to the point we get four hours of sleep is too much,” Gelfand said.

“They [the school] need to somehow make it more balanced for our schedule, while still able to keep us challenged and ready for college.”

Joshua Harris, who graduated last year, said he’s well aware of the extreme academic pressures on campus.

Attending University of Chicago in the fall, Harris said he thinks the students here work very hard.

“It’s what we sign up for,” Harris said. “We are at one of the 100 top public schools in the nation. Among us are those who are bright, and feel the need to be brightest and get 4.7 GPA’s, to the shock and awe of everyone else.”

AP Physics teacher Kirk Davis said that if students in an AP class need tutoring, then they shouldn’t be in that AP class. Davis also said that teachers are better alternatives to tutors, since tutors are not actually in the class when the material is being taught.

“Why don’t the kids use us?” Davis said. “The tutors will take 15 minutes just to know what’s going on [in the class].”
   
English 11 H teacher Suzanne Herzman said that she doesn’t have a problem with tutoring and sees the benefits of it. However, Herzman said that she hopes that tutors are used correctly in that they help kids develop their skills, as opposed to writing their essays for them.
  
“[There’s a difference between] extra support for skills/materials or extra support to write your paper, without developing skills,” Herzman said.
   
Junior Stephen Cho said he thinks the academic pressures here are more intense here than at most other schools because of the hard-working students.

“They make it hard, because there’re so many smart people so they [the school] need to make some smart people not get as good grades,” Cho said, “or else too many people will get all A’s.”

Junior Tony Capek said that although the academic atmosphere is very intense, he feels that it all depends on the classes one takes.

“I think that our school is competitive because everyone is taking a lot of AP classes,” Capek said, “but I wouldn’t know how competitive our school is compared to other schools since I’ve never attended [schools like Los Gatos].”

Harris said that although he worked hard in school, he never received any tutoring for any of his classes, and neither did his friends. 

“One's off to NYU Tisch [School of Drama], another to Wash U, I'm to U Chicago,” Harris said. “Plenty are going to USC. They aren't Ivies, but [my friends] worked hard, and there is a difference between motivated and just plain insane.”
   
Harris also said the tutoring that occurs probably helps teachers in their instructions.

“For teachers, it probably is a good thing,” he said. “They have more students who are getting the material right at the offset.”