Caution! School May Be Too Stressful for Your Teen

The day before 13-year-old Devon Marvin of Danville ended her life, she got an "F" on a math test.

Devon, one of many teen suicides to rock the Bay Area over the past few years, brought to light a controversial subject, which has garnered a lot of attention across the nation among parents, educators and children alike—that school may be too stressful for children, and there's a lot of pressure on today’s students to succeed.

Vicki Abeles, a mother of three, sent that message with her powerful documentary, Race to Nowhere, which has created quite a buzz across the nation since its release in 2009.

The film, which featured interviews with experts, parents, students and educators from all around the country—including several from the Bay Area—showed that for students with such heavy workloads, it became impossible to really learn and retain the information in their classes.

For some students, at a certain point, it became about survival, even if that meant memorizing information to spit back out on the tests, just to get the grade. Or, in some cases, it meant cheating, just to get by.

Miller Wrenn, a senior at , said he sees desperate measures like those nearly every day, among his peers.

“There are a lot of kids who do a lot of crazy things to get good grades around here," he said. "Like doing all-nighters at least a few times a week, or too much caffeine with not enough sleep."

Wrenn said he thinks being in the center of the Silicon Valley has a lot to do with it—many of the parents in this area have unrealistic expectations, he said.

“I know if I work hard, I’m going to be able to get into a good college and get a decent job, and all that,” he said. “But, for some kids, that’s not enough. They say they have to get into Harvard, Yale or Stanford—Stanford’s the big one around here; all the parents want their kids to go there.”

So the pressure starts early, he explained.

“They start in on them as early as 5 years old, saying stuff like, ‘Boy, it would be great if you could get into Stanford or Berkeley,’" he said. “There’s all this pressure to be 'the star.’”

Joe Ordoñez, a counselor and intervention specialist at  in Mountain View, said helping the students at his school deal with intense stress is a big part of his job, nearly every day.

“I think it can especially be hard for the sixth-graders, just because they go from being in one class all day [in elementary school], and coming here to middle school and seeing how much work it is,” he said. “And then, in the seventh and eighth grades, they stress out too, with stress from their parents and teachers, and then adding in the pressure to be liked and be popular. I think it’s a little bit of everything.”

Ordonez said he does think the workload on today’s students can get a little out of hand at times.

“Sometimes when I tutor students after school, I look at the kids’ workload and say to myself—‘wow,’” he said.

Experts interviewed in Race to Nowhere provided some statistics that were both ironic and shocking.

One Advanced Placement teacher from Lafayette said he conducted a personal experiment with one of his classes, in which he cut back on homework for a semester. The result? Test scores actually went up.

Likewise, Denise Pope, a professor at Stanford, said that out of all the countries that routinely outperform the U.S. in international academic exams, all of them assign less homework than the U.S.

So what can we do to help our young students deal with the stress, and help prevent teen suicides from happening?

“What I try to do is, explain to them to have good communication with their parents and teachers,” Ordoñez said. “And I ask them, what can I do to help? And then I try and find them the tools they need.”

Sometimes, that’s all they need, Ordonez said—to know that the adults in their life will be there for them and want to support them.

Rachel Wrenn, who has fraternal twins in the 12th grade, including one at Mountain View High, said that has been her philosophy from the beginning, and she thinks that is a big factor for why her children have a balanced lifestyle today.

“Some parents act like there are only 15 schools in the U.S., rather than thousands,” she said. “And there’s a lot of societal pressure, too, being from such an affluent area, but a lot of it comes from the parents. I think a lot of parents feel their children’s accomplishments are a reflection on them.”

Nicky Lindley, a senior at Mountain View High, said he has many friends who are over-stressed, who stay up until 3 a.m. nearly every night to keep up with schoolwork. He said he, too, thinks the stress and pressure largely came from their parents.

“Being in Silicon Valley, with so many high-achievers and engineers, I think parents expect a lot from their children,” he said.

Lindley suggested that, perhaps, teachers and administrators could get more involved in a dialogue with parents, to help students manage their stress and workloads.

“Maybe it could start with the schools—if the schools could be better about getting the word out to parents about how pressure can affect students,” he offered. “Because, coming from us, it’s not necessarily something they want to hear. It can be difficult to get them to understand.”

As a parent, Wrenn explained, when she can see the stress starting to get to her kids, she sits them down and talks to them about how they can make a change, rather than how to just “deal with it” and move on, or keep things the same.

“We try to talk about how to mitigate the stress and how to put things into perspective, so they realize that, maybe, this pressure doesn’t have to be so extreme, and every performance doesn’t have to be perfect,” she said.

“After all, they can’t do everything, so, what can they cut so they have a more balanced life? That’s what we try to figure out.”

For more information on how to get involved with local students’ lives, help mitigate stress and pressure and help prevent teen suicide, visit Project Cornerstone at projectcornerstone.org. This organization is headquartered in Santa Clara County.