I spend a lot of time talking to teachers and students about their perspectives on school. Here’s what students tell me.
1. Respect must be earned.
Most adolescents say teachers do not deserve respect simply because they are teachers. In fact, most students don’t believe teachers even deserve the benefit of the doubt and must earn respect by showing them, the students, respect first.
This attitude breaks a previously unchallenged value of our culture: that older people deserve respect and kindness from younger people unless they do something to break that code. Adults can complain about this shift; but if we want to be effective, we need to deal with it.
2. Grades vs. Learning
Students approach academic achievement differently than adults do. Some teens love learning for the sake of learning, but most exhibit a powerful personal drive to “get somewhere.” The days of learning as a pleasurable experience rather than a means to an end are all but gone, yet some adults continue to perpetuate an ideal of learning as an inherent good.
A student will do whatever it takes to navigate the complex and varied demands of mid-adolescence with as much selfprotection and self-interest as necessary. Students who believe getting good grades helps them feel better about themselves do what they have to do to get those grades. For those whose primary strategies lie elsewhere, grades are less important.
3. Many cheat.
Cheating is so widespread on high-school campuses that it is considered by many to be the norm. Cheating for mid-adolescents is a complex issue, thanks to mixed messages from parents and schools. Many simply do what is necessary to fulfill the expectations of the academic role they are playing.
To mid-adolescents, cheating is rarely considered a moral problem; but when it is, cheating students rarely see themselves as the culprit. They are, rather, unfortunate victims who had no other option.
Today, two rigid ethical commitments crash into one another at the high-school and college level. The traditional ethic of academic integrity along with the contemporary adolescent perspective that cheating is an acceptable—even relatively moral—option for the student who needs to perform. Adults have created a world in which adolescents have accepted the belief that deceit is a viable way to succeed. This “game” has produced students who range from those who are proficient at conforming to others’ expectations to those who must figure out how to survive when they cannot live up to those expectations.
4. Students are anxious.
Students who care about grades and academic performance are experiencing an ever-increasing level of anxiety and stress about school. Two elements that add to their stress level are the increasing amount of homework required and university mandates to be involved in multiple extracurricular activities.
For many “good students,” the day starts before 7 a.m. They get home after practice or a meeting at 5 or 6 p.m., do an hour of homework, grab dinner before heading out to an activity, get home at 9:30 or 10 p.m., and finish homework around 1 a.m.
The bulk of the students I observed often were exhausted, harried and frazzled. There seemed to be little apparent systemic consideration for what these schedules, expectations and pressures do to the development and health of mid-adolescents.
