Siddhanth Kumar is a 7th grader at Bedford Middle School.
He has loved geography since he was a toddler, and last summer won the 6th Grade National Geography championship.
He also researches American history, and collect currencies from around the world (144 countries, and counting).
He also loves journalism, and hopes to pursue it as a career. Sid writes:
Last month, the Westport Library welcomed Jennifer Wallace. She is the author of the book “Never Enough,” which talks about the serious dangers of “toxic achievement culture.”
Toxic achievement culture is when students have grades as the only focus when it comes to school.
I agree with her for the following reasons:
- It puts a lot of pressure on students at a very young age
- It limits them from making friends
- It burdens them from doing after school activities of their choice
It puts a lot of pressure on students by making them feel like if they do not get the “perfect” grade according to their family’s standards, it will make the student feel like a failure. He or she will have to deal with at some point in time that they brought shame to their family, especially if it is a prestigious and popular family.
Siddhanth Kumar
The next reason is that it limits them from making friends. At times parents believe that schools were created for children to solely achieve top grades. Over the years, kids who have been only focused on grades have been made fun off, teased or even bullied because to other kids, mainly popular ones, they seem asocial. Making friends is a very essential life skill because it helps one find a trusted person in school of their age that they can go to for any problems.
The last reason is that it burdens them from doing any after-school activities of their interest. Having good grades comes with a lot of work which might include stuff such as homework, academic bowls and even certain tuition classes. That is very stressful, especially considering the aftermath which can include lack of sleep or not being able to eat on time. Imagine just being all day long with the books, to fulfill your family’s dream. Being indoors 24 hours a day and 7 days a week means a lack of fresh air and oxygen, which is the main ingredient to us so that we can breathe, and stay healthy.
To summarize, I agree with Mrs. Wallace because toxic achievement culture puts a lot of pressure on students, it limits them from making friends and it burdens them from just being “kids.”
I think as an alternative that the state and school system should ban homework because it is a component of this huge issue that is troubling many children. Kids are not machines by juggling school, a lot of assignments and after school activities.
Kids are humans and humans deserve their Happy Hour, and homework gives a lack of that privilege. They can also limit tests as preparation for tests can cause unnecessary stress to the average student. The result can be very stressful as grades are a hot topic, and in some families getting scores such as a 98 can be not perfect for several families.
Nobody is perfect, because we each lay claim to our unique selves.
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Good one, Sid, thanks for sharing it.
And, of course, it’s that “family standard”, held dear by the parents, that pressures a kid into thinking grades are the be all and end all which, as you so clearly remind us, is simply not the case.
Love this article. My husband and I were just speaking about this yesterday. We loved learning and hated homework. Life is about creating Long lasting, friendships, and teamwork. Caring and sharing your knowledge.
Well done! Appreciate this thorough analysis of the author’s main points. Thank you Siddhath!
Here’s some ideas instead of an outright ban. How about limiting homework to 20 minutes a night Monday through Thursday. How about homework that’s actually fun. This can be done once in a while. A total ban doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. I had a class where homework counted as one-third of your grade. It was corrected in class whereby students corrected their own homework and got credit. That one-third actually really helped in the overall grade!
One more point- when students realized that doing their homework, then correcting it in class the next day, actually counted as one-third of their grade, they basically never missed a homework assignment!
We didn’t have any homework until maybe 5th grade. I remember, because I was really bummed when teachers started to assign book reviews. Yeah, we did have to memorize the times tables at one point, but we were mostly left to our own devices after school, giving us time for plenty of “play dates” (what we called “going over to so-and-so’s house”) and a lot of reading whatever we felt like. Some of us took music lessons, some played Little League, but no one assumed we had a shot at the big-time.
I dip down Memory Lane here because my peers and I did not fall into some sort of mythical achievement gap. We went on to become doctors and lawyers and writers and businesspeople and artists and IT folks and anything else you can imagine.
I understand the zero-sum thinking that pervades American culture informs parental and BoE thought, and fell embarrassingly far into the trap, myself, when my kids were young. But we’ve all seen first hand that more ≠ better when it comes to formal education, and we ignore developmental science and character growth (resilience, cooperation, creativity) at our kids’ peril. Syllabi that honor the whole of a student, as well as the wide variations in learning patterns, would go a long way toward alleviating family stress–and be a whole lot more fun.
Great piece, Sid. As a journalism grad and former reporter/editor, I would be happy to mentor your budding journalism career!
Most are aware of this important issue. Fortunately, it is not totally a generation divide, the younger parents being less supportive of the broad benefits of school than my generation. Homework at the elementary school level could surely be dropped. I believe Superintendent Scarice made that point at a BoE Public gathering late last year. That meeting also addressed how today’s culture extends to sports. Athletes, often the best, no longer play multiple sports. Because of the pressures, including from coaches and the college resume process, an athlete will focus on only one sport, playing it year round, at least practicing year round.
These are real issues. They should be easier to address than many.
This is true about sports. I have kids that play water polo and swim, both at a nationally ranked, high level. These sports compliment each other and yet I have to fight to create space for them to do both. It’s nuts.
Home schooling? Then every parent gets to tell the teacher what to do and determine the right balance between classroom learning and homework. Kind of leaves the WEA out to dry but, as they say at The Playhouse, that’s show biz. However, it’s a great article and Sid’s a great kid so somebody somewhere is doing something right.
Development of social skills are every bit as important in life as academic skills. That’s why recess is important. Teachers have to be on the lookout for students not “doing well” in recess and try to take corrective action or make referrals to nip problems which could follow someone for the rest of their lives.
Homework is important, and students need to develop the discipline to do it . Learning to postpone instant gratification and delegate time are also important attributes needed to succeed in life.
When you take the first 15 minutes to correct yesterday’s homework, you basically taught the lesson again! To be fair, I started teaching 6 years before the personal computer was invented.
I raised two kids, one special needs, in the same public school system. First class outcomes in both cases. But our economic situation enabled close cooperative effort with their teachers. I have seen many parents homeschool their kids with excellent outcomes that I wouldn’t have thought possible 25 years ago. You have to be open-minded and you have to be willing to do the hard work that you would have formally delegated to teachers whose situation has become progressively worse. In todays environment few teachers remain in teaching past 5-10 years.
I much regret I didn’t become a teacher. It is a hard profession for Westporters to choose, though, when the cars in the student parking lot are nicer than the cars in the faculty parking lot and few teachers can afford to live in Westport.
I love this article- it touches on so many important points, and really impactful to see this topic through the lens of a student. Go Sid!!!
Thank you I cannot believe that I am getting this from someone of National Televesion
Thank you all for your feedback and comments. I am truly honored by your encouragement!