Setting Students Up for Success: A Teacher’s Perspective

From the intense pressures of the college application process to the societal expectations shaping student extracurricular choices.  Our kids are doing it all.  Are they achieving success?

Join Amy O. and Dr. Lisa in a candid conversation with Aimee Wool, a seasoned high school teacher, as they delve into the evolving world of student stress. Wool shares valuable insights into the changing dynamics of education and offers thought-provoking perspectives on redefining success and happiness beyond traditional benchmarks.

Tune in to discover the crucial role teachers and parents play in fostering a healthy balance between academic achievement and overall well-being.

SHOW NOTES:
10:00 The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor
10:30 TEDx Bloomington, Shawn Achor, "The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance"
15:00 PMHG S3 E2: What Really Matters Most in High School May Surprise You 

music credit: Tune 2 go / POND 5
©CATCH 2023

To find all of the resources CATCH provides to caregivers of young people struggling with their mental health, go to www.catchiscommunity.org.

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CATCH, Community Action Together for Children's Health, is a 501(c)3 that provides support and education for families around mental health topics. Original content and materials from CATCH and its collaborators are for informational purposes only. They are provided as a general resource and are not specific to any person or circumstance.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Amy O., Executive Director, CATCH: Welcome back. On our last episode of Parenting the Mental Health Generation, we spoke with two Glenbrook North grads who shared stories about what it's like growing up on the North Shore of Chicago.

And today we're going into the schools again by speaking with a fantastic teacher who's seen it all for nearly two decades.

Hi, I'm Amy. 

Dr. Lisa, CATCH Board Member: And I'm Lisa. Today, our wonderful guest is Aimee Wool, a high school teacher at GBN who's taught a range of social science classes for the past 18 years. Aimee is here to share some trends she's seen in the student body, some thoughts about why students seem so much more stressed these days than in the past, and some tips for how to help our kids refocus on the things that will truly help them be successful.

Amy O.: So, put in your earbuds, take these 30 minutes for you, and join our conversation with Aimee Wool Aimee Wool.

Dr. Lisa: Hello Aimee. Welcome. I'm in an Amy sandwich today.

Amy O.: Yes, you are!

Aimee Wool, Glenbrook North Social Studies Teacher: Thank you.

[00:01:00] Dr. Lisa: We're excited to have you here today. You know, it's no surprise that our students are stressed. We've seen it, we've heard it, and we wanted to hear from a teacher living it, what that looks like in the school buildings and in your classrooms these days.

Aimee Wool:  I’m happy to share my experiences with you. Students, especially in the fall and especially our upper-level classmen, this pressure with the college application process seems to be far more overwhelming than let's say 10 or 15 years ago. I think as the focus of colleges has been greater and the acceptance rates at schools that our students used to be frequenting seems to be dropping, students feel this pressure to take advanced classes, honors classes, advanced placement classes, be involved in leading several extracurricular activities, being involved in sports, doing community service on the side. All while managing a social life and family stress and pressures. It's just feeling like a lot for our students, and they feel overwhelmed and that they don't have enough time in the day to manage all of their various responsibilities.

While sleeping. The sleeping has very much been sacrificed. 

Amy O.: Is that pressure real or manufactured?

Aimee Wool: I think it's a combination of both. I think COVID certainly affected acceptance rates. I think especially last year, students, our students that were traditionally getting into schools like University of Illinois and University of Wisconsin, some getting into Texas, University of Florida, for example, those acceptance rates dropped and students that you know, felt like they had worked their whole life, at least their whole middle school and high school life to get into these schools. ACT tutoring, SAT tutoring and the like still didn't feel successful early on, especially [00:03:00] during the first round of acceptances. Now many did get in after they had been deferred, but the pressure is real. I think that there are more students, especially GBN, applying to schools that might be considered or what would have been considered 15 years ago as reach schools. And so, students are no longer just applying to five schools. Like when I went to Glenbrook North in the 90s, I applied to four, got into three and picked one, went to visit two, picked one, it was done.

 And even when we used to do the handwritten before the Common App, when teachers would do their letters of recommendation. We would print them. We would put them in envelopes with stamps and send them off. And I was maybe sending five, six, seven per, per student. Now with the college app, students are applying to 10, 15, 17 ,20. I mean, it's just ballooned and the pressure to get all that work done by November 1st, especially for the seniors while managing all the other pressures that they feel. It's a lot.

Dr. Lisa: You guys are going to have to excuse my naivety on this one and welcome to the fact that I'm Canadian and did not have to go through any of this myself. And it really is a very different landscape in Canada than it is here with the college applications. I want to believe there is a school for everyone and I'm trying to understand is the pressure that you're describing because there are certain schools that people think they need to go to or are there schools that people truly have to go to? I mean, I can tell you from my perspective, I didn't go to any of those schools. I went to a school nobody that's listening to this will have heard of in Canada, and yet here I am living on the North Shore of Chicago quite successfully as a neuropsychologist. I'm just not sure why it's not adding up for me.

[00:05:00] Amy O.: Wait, before you answer that, Aimee, can I just interject that not only I think should the question be, is there a school for everyone, but does everyone have to go to school? Like let's put into the conversation that this doesn't necessarily have to be the end game.

Aimee Wool: Everyone does not need to go to school. And we have several faculty members at Glenbrook North and especially Dr. Boyle, who works tirelessly to help students find those schools that may be for them. And they’re not even universities. They’re trade schools. We have students who take a gap year, they study in Israel, they join the military, they just take a break for a year, they travel, they do service work. It's not very many, if I'm being honest. And we have a fantastic College Resource Center and Dr. Boyle does a wonderful job helping students try to find that school that's the best fit for them because these big competitive Big Ten schools is not for everybody. It's not even for most students, if I'm being honest. But I think the pressure that some students, maybe many students, not maybe, certainly many, I can't give you a percent, but it's the universities that previous students have attended, that their parents have attended. The ones with the college sweatshirts and the football games. And the social media has not helped that in that now when students get into schools, there are the announcements, the decorating, the parties, and the kids announcing and the parents announcing. At Glenbrook North, we traditionally had, I was the senior class board advisor for years, we had a May Day where on May 1st, we celebrated the decisions that students had made and we have moved away from just a traditional college experience May Day, but celebrating all decisions students are making. The school understands students are taking different paths, and we encourage students to take different paths. It is systemic in nature. It is part of our community. It's part of where siblings have gone. Its where older friends have gone. It's what students see and want.

[00:07:00] Dr. Lisa: And there is messaging around it that is so pervasive that people truly feel like if they don't go to X school, they won't amount to anything. They are doomed. And I talk to students in my office all the time who come in with that perspective. And you know, I talked to the parents, and they're worried about the very same thing. And it feels like they, they are genuinely concerned.

Aimee Wool: From my experience and from the social studies teachers that I work very closely with that message is certainly not coming from teachers. Our message, and certainly the college counseling message and the guidance counselor’s message is that there is a small school, a big school, a medium sized school, a liberal arts school, a technical college, a trade school for everybody. But we are just one voice and students nod their heads and say thank you and then walk out of our classrooms or our offices and it's back to that pressure cooker of stress that they feel.

Amy O.: Is there also conversation that just is about being in high school? 

Aimee Wool: Like being present and living in the moment and being happy?

Amy O.: Learning to love learning, learning to love friends, learning to understand your place, or beginning to understand your place on the planet.

[00:09:00] Aimee Wool: Sure, I think that again, as social studies teachers, we certainly strive for that especially in our civics classes, being good citizens. And what does that mean? And U. S. History, learning the mistakes that country has made throughout the years. And how can we be actively involved in the importance of current events? And in psychology and sociology that's all we focus on. Yes, we do that. And I have the most fantastic colleagues on the planet who are the most caring, compassionate individuals who notice when students feel down or overly stressed and pull them aside and remind them that they're more than just a test grade. They're more than just their grade in school. They're more than their college. That doesn't define you. It may feel like it does in the moment, but we are trying. I know parents are trying. This is truly systemic to our community right now.

Amy O.: what can CATCH do, Aimee Wool? What information can we bring to the parents or, I mean, I know we try to, to remind them of the importance of, you know, validating their kids' feelings and listening to how stressed they feel and, but what else can we do?

Aimee Wool: Yes. I think that for many students, this pressure that they feel is pressure that they put on themselves. I'm sure sometimes it's coming from the parents, but I also think it's coming just within students, who again, with social media and what they see around them and who's going where and how big of a deal it seems to be. I think a lot of it is student pressure and just reminding students, reminding their kids to just focus on the here and now sometimes. Part of one of our professional developments years ago was when we studied as teachers, this positive psychologist by the name of Shawn Achor, and he wrote a book called the Happiness Advantage. And I show this in some of the classes that I teach. He gives this great Ted Talk. It's this idea that we are looking at happiness and success backwards. Through his longitudinal and cross-sectional studies over forty-five countries in the past 20 years, he says that we are measuring our happiness based on how successful we are. So, if we are successful, then we feel happy. And the idea is that if we're always pushing that benchmark up, that we're pushing, as he says, happiness over the cognitive horizon so that it's very difficult to feel happy. If the only way we feel happy is when we feel successful, because as soon as we feel successful, as a psychology teacher, I can mention there's something called the adaptation level phenomenon, whereby we feel happy and proud for a short time, and then we adapt back to our regular level of happiness, and then to feel that rush of dopamine and serotonin again to feel happy, we have to be more successful. So, I got a ninety, now I need to get a ninety-two. I got a ninety-two, I need to get a ninety-five. I had a 3. 3 GPA, now it needs to be 3. 5. And not just for students, but just for adults as well. And so, back to the home, not measuring students worth and happiness in contributions just based on their academic success, but by spending more time together, validating character building and spending time as family and sleeping and hobbies and making students feel like this is just a moment in time, and it doesn't define who they are as people.

Dr. Lisa: Do you feel like the students in your classes are ready to receive that?

[00:12:00] Aimee Wool: They're appreciative when we as teachers try to send these messages and we do mindfulness Mondays, and we do a lot of journaling, and they nod their heads, and they seem to appreciate it in the moment. I can't see what happens when they walk out of the room. They're just so polite. Perhaps they're just happy to hear it for a moment, but I don't think the message just coming from teachers is enough. I think if it were coming from parents at home too, I do think they'd be receptive. I do believe though our students feel like our parents don't understand because it wasn't so hard for them. It wasn't so stressful for them and, and they're right. It wasn't.

Dr. Lisa: I wonder even before they leave your classroom, you know, we talk about the things that really matter and how we're not defined by our grades or our score on something, but then they, they are graded on assignments and then you're returning those assignments and for a student who maybe worked hard and did spend too many hours and stayed up too late and compromised their sleep schedule in order to perform and then didn't get the grade that they wanted. How are you seeing them react to that?

[00:13:00] Aimee Wool: You know, it varies. Some are more resilient and have more grit than others. Some can handle setbacks with a growth mindset a little bit better than others. It also depends on the student's mood that day and again, how much sleep they've had and how much accountability and ownership they're willing to take. And sometimes, some students are wanting to take classes that maybe are a real challenge for them and not just one class that's a challenge, but maybe a few classes that are challenging and it's truly hard to manage all of that and still feel quote unquote successful and then quote unquote happy, sadly.

[00:14:00] Dr. Lisa: Can we go back to one of the first things you said about all the things on their plates right now, and how maybe a lot of that is driven by the college application process and what we think colleges want to see. What do you advise students then who are taking a bunch of classes, but then also trying to be on the sports teams and participate in clubs. Do you encourage that diversity? Do you tell them to stop engaging in so many activities and have some downtime?

Aimee Wool: It's not really my place to counsel in those matters because my interaction with the students is just focused on my class. And although in social studies, they do journal and I do give them individual feedback and we do have open discussions. And very early on in some more upper-level advanced placement classes that I teach I do on day one, two and three encourage students to take a look at their life this year and take a look at the extracurriculars that they have and their stress and whether or not they work outside of school and to maybe make a choice and I say that's good for you. That's good for your emotional and your mental and your physical health, not just your academic health. So, I certainly say it, but that's more of what the guidance counselor's role in our building is to help students pick schedules that best fit their abilities and their needs.

[00:15:00] Amy O.: You know, I'm thinking back about my time in the first-grade classroom and reflecting on our podcast with Kathleen Nolan last time. Kathleen was one who did high school by trying a whole bunch of different things. But many people who get to high school I think have done the same activities since they were six. Like my first graders were in soccer. But they weren't just in soccer on Saturday mornings They were in soccer Monday Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and they're still in soccer when they get to high school I'm wondering if it's even still fun or if it's even still an outlet, or if that's just another thing that they feel like they have to be really good at and really invested in. And that starting all this stuff so young at such an intense pace.

Dr. Lisa: I can tell you personally that that pressure starts as early as you're describing still, if not earlier. I have a just turned six-year-old and we were at soccer on Saturday morning in the most casual of forms and yet he had a really great game and three parents came up to me at the end and said, you know, you're going to have to do travel soccer for that child, right? And I was like, nope, I don't know, that in fact. I immediately had this reaction of, I feel like I must choose between competition and wellness or balance and pressure. It becomes this dichotomous problem to solve that I think again, the pressures from other parents in the community, make it hard to just be a present parent and think about what's best for my own child and let him drive that show and decide what he wants to do.

Amy O.: Travel soccer can be brilliant, by the way. It can be an amazing experience.

Aimee Wool: I do have students in one of my classes that I teach after they took their first unit test, I just had them fill out on note cards, like, how are you doing? How are you sleeping? How are you taking care of yourself? How are you feeling about the year so far? And then, of course, how could somebody from a certain perspective that we're studying study this further? Just to connect it a little bit to class content. Actually, many students did say that they are finding joy in their sports. They feel super stressed at school and such, but they get on the field, or the court and they really let it out and it makes them feel good.

[00:18:00] Amy O.: You just want to make sure that there are places where kids can find true joy and release and risk, and experimentation, and all of the things that allow a kid to discover who they are instead of having been that thing since they were seven, you know? 

Aimee Wool: I think students do come back from summer break feeling rejuvenated. They have relaxed, they have had more fun, even more joy. They've gone to concerts, they've traveled, they've done a project that's made them happy. They've explored a hobby. I think that the pressure then starts to ramp back up like day five into school, they start feeling the stress again, but I do think that joy does happen in the summer.

Amy O.: This is a silly question, but is there ever conversation about, you're a C student, you're an A student. The difference about what you've learned in this class is pretty small. You haven't performed as well on the tests or the essays or what have you. So, is there ever conversation about that? Because in all honesty, when my daughter was at GBN, and she was struggling with mental illness and was a victim of all this pressure in a huge way. My husband and I used to joke, sort of, that we would like to pay her to get a C. Now, of course, we didn't do that. We don't really believe that that's a good way to motivate your kid, but we wanted her to get a C because if she went to class, was present, learned the material, and just didn't study for the test, we would be okay with that. Did you ever talk about that stuff, or is that kind of inappropriate from a teacher's point of 

[00:20:00] Aimee Wool: No, it's not necessarily inappropriate, but certainly I think as you had mentioned, when students do work really hard and struggle on tests, that when, you know, many of us meet with them one on one, we certainly say it's not because you didn't learn it. It's not because you don't know it. It's not because you're not trying. It's perhaps because the style of test taking is hard for you and it's an acquired skill. And it requires different ways of studying and tapping into different skill sets, and we'll get there. But I think sometimes that's hard to hear. I think it's hard for students to hear because they work hard. They want to reap the benefits of that. And my teacher telling me it's okay, I'm going to get there and that I learned it, even though what they see is the grades, sadly.

Dr. Lisa: Well, I also wonder, though, about active choices that they can make and how those would be received. So, for example, if somebody is in class all day and gets a little bit of their work done, but then they do have, you know, commitments after school. By the time, the day is over, they're exhausted, and they are trying to prioritize sleep and mental health, and so certain assignments are left undone. And then they go to school the next day, and they're like, I didn't finish my homework. How is that received?

Aimee Wool: I think it's very teacher dependent. Yes, it just absolutely depends on the teacher on the subject matter. And if you can also see from the teacher's perspective, a lot of our kids are over involved, and it's hard. Of course, on a case-by-case basis, I can say, and I do say that's okay. Get it to me tomorrow. You know, get it to me the next day. No problem. It's hard for teachers to continue moving forward and covering the content, especially in upper-level classes that move very quickly that have 28 kids in a room who are all kind of fitting that bill of taking a lot of hard classes and they have their sports and they're in the extracurriculars and the theater and the arts and their rehearsals are going till 10 o'clock at night. It's hard to manage all of that as a classroom teacher too. And what I think some of us want to say and do say is knowing how busy you are outside of school, this class on top of everything else you have, knowing the workload early on, that’s not the best choice for you. And that's hard to hear, too, because many just want to do it all because they feel like they have to.

Dr. Lisa: Because... they're afraid that if they don't, something terrible will happen. You know, I can't stop thinking about the fear that seems to truly underlie all of this in such a present ever present sort of way and how to chip away at that and tell success stories of people who've done the things that, you know, these students want to do in their lives and are looking back and saying, like, I didn't go to that college or I didn't take five AP classes. I didn't do it this way. And yet here I am, and I did just fine. But we don't see enough of that. We don't hear enough of that to help people truly believe there are other ways to achieve their goals.

Aimee Wool: Sure. The teachers tell that story. And they provide those narratives. Absolutely. I don't know if the message coming from us is enough.

[00:23:00] Amy O.: Well, I think it doesn't help that we've all chosen to live in a place in large part because the schools here have a good reputation. I mean, let's get real. That's why a lot of people live here or come back to raise their kids here that have grown up here. And, you know, we were just ranked like the best in the world or, you know, number two in the country or whatever it was.

Aimee Wool: And that is a very arbitrary measure that we are, yes. Well, I took a snapshot from the newspaper about the criteria by which that was chosen, and it left out some important pieces. Let's put it that way, namely mental health, and wellbeing. But I guess what I was going to say is, I think that if we could somehow redefine what it means to live in a place with a good school system. In other words, a good school system doesn't mean that you get into a good college. A good school system means that your kid is safe. Your kid learns some things. Your kids are cared for, develop well, understand who they are. That to me is a good school system. And so somehow if we could work to redefine that. Because what we decided when kids were so small is that we're here to be somewhere else. Like we're here to be in the school system to get elsewhere. And we're not just marinating in being here.

[00:24:00] Dr. Lisa: Well, and what's crazy about what you're saying is that it sounds like these things are mutually exclusive, but cognitively that doesn't make any sense to me, right? We are more available for learning when we do feel good and when we are getting good rest and when we are feeling resilient and when we have our mental health intact, that's when we learn best. And so, you'd think that there'd be a way to be academically successful in the classic ways that all these measures are defining it while simultaneously being healthy and we simply haven't struck that balance yet.

Amy O.: Well, and I think it's also interesting to remember that in our last podcast again, those two young women, when they reflected on their experiences at GBN, the things that were most important to them, that have stayed with them the most, were that they were both lucky enough to develop friends that they still have. None of them said, oh my gosh, that class I took was fantastic.

Dr. Lisa: Or I loved spending seven hours a night on that homework. 

Aimee Wool: True. 

Amy O.: And, you know, those stories maybe are, are one of the ways that we could continue this dialogue in the community, is to remind people that at the end of the day, what really matters is that those young women feel loved and cared for and solid and that's what we all want for our kids and our students, right?

[00:26:00] Dr. Lisa: And, and I wonder too, as the parent of two young children, whether the difficult part is we're talking about these high school students who are already in high school. They've already been through, you know, 9, 10, 11 years of this schooling, this messaging, and this pressure. But maybe the hope here is that my kindergartner comes home every day using growth mindset language that was clearly and explicitly taught to him in class. And he's like, mom, I made a mistake. And you know what? I learned from it. That's the greatest win that you could come home with.

Aimee Wool: The elementary schools, our feeder schools, are doing a phenomenal job with their social emotional programming. Every feeder school has a solid program in place. They spend time with the kids in class on it. They're coming to the high school. I think at least the schools have done the best they can equipped with the terminology, the language. It's just harder for students to implement come high school when the pressure is ramped up.

Dr. Lisa: We're going to have to keep working then, I guess.

[00:27:00] Aimee Wool: Yes. And, and we will. And we have the most supportive, wonderful parents in this community who love their kids, care for their kids, and want the best for their kids. And no parent wants their child to struggle with mental health or with emotional struggles or self-esteem issues. I mean, all we as parents want is for our kids to be happy and healthy. And I truly believe that our parents' hearts are in the right place. And I think sometimes it's just hard for parents to quiet the voice in the kids' heads for what the kids want, and parents just feel like they need to give the kids what they want. Including the academic support so that they feel happy and successful.

Dr. Lisa: We got to work on redefining these things, don't we?

Aimee Wool: Redefine happiness.

Amy O.: Yes, we do. 

Dr. Lisa: Challenge accepted.

Amy O.: But we still have jobs, that's good.

Dr. Lisa: Yes. Well, Aimee, thank you so much for being here for your time and your commitment to balancing our students’ education with their mental health. It is an ongoing journey, and we appreciate you with your boots on the ground helping our students.

[00:28:00] Aimee Wool: We're in it together. It’s an important partnership.