Season of Celebration … and Reflection

It’s prom season.  Or in CA’s case, post-prom, pre-Commencement season.   It’s a time when we reflect on the accomplishments of students, especially the seniors.  It’s also a time when anxiety about the year to come peaks.  Students ask “Am I taking enough advanced classes?” “Can I do more than 5 core courses?” “What does (enter college name) want me to do, so I can get in?”

These questions, while felt deeply at a personal level, are ubiquitous to high schools around the country.  This fact was underscored when Robin Follet and I attended a conference for academic leadership just last week.

Cary Academy is part of the INDEX group – a consortium of independent schools who exchange data to facilitate collaborative discussions regarding current performance, emerging trends, and best practices in the areas of institutional structure, operations, and programs.  You have seen some of their data in Dr. Ehrhardt’s state of the school address.  While at the conference, Mr. Follet and I had the opportunity to truly reflect on Cary Academy’s accomplishments and strong student-centered and mission-centered programs as we engaged in round-table discussions on common topics to all of the schools.

One particularly important session on Community Culture highlighted the benefits of independent schools – that we truly are learning communities  – places in which students are known more than by the average of academic Carnegie Units or class rank.  We discussed the importance of parent and school partnership, strong diversity and inclusion practices and the growing anxiety and depression rates amongst teens.

To further the conversation, INDEX invited Dr. Suniya Luthar as the conference key note speaker.  Dr. Luthar, a Foundation Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, and Professor Emerita at Columbia University’s Teacher College, studies resiliency in youth.  Her presentation to the group of educators at INDEX focused on young people in high achieving schools, where current research indicates that students are four times more likely to experience depression and anxiety than national norms.  Of course, this news did not come as a surprise to the school leaders in attendance, as combatting student anxiety and self-pressure to perform has become more prevalent in our conversations.

Dr. Luthar notes that the pressure to shine academically, socially, athletically and extra-curricularly are unparalleled to what we parents experienced in our high school years.  Of course, social media, and the curated personas that students create via the many apps drives the self- comparison with others, and “FOMO” (fear of missing out) drives an internal monologue that the students must combat.

I could certainly wax on, iterating all of the differences of adolescence today versus twenty years ago, but what I most appreciated from Dr. Luthar was her clear messaging on action steps we can take as partnered parents and schools to help build teen resiliency – “the ability to adapt well in the face of hard times,” according to the American Psychological Association, which includes “high stress” within their definition of “hard times.”

Dr. Luthar encourages parents and schools to consider the messages we convey.  Rather than stating expectations to achieve academically, go to a good school, or get a good career, we must convey that students be respectful, help others, and be kind.  These are the true markers of successful, resilient, excellent students.

Along with these important messages, Dr. Luthar’s research indicates that schools must have the following characteristics:

1. Every child should feel like there is at least one adult in the school community who cares about him or her.
2. No child should feel like there is an adult in the school community who makes him or her feel embarrassed or ashamed or unfairly punished.
3. Kids need to feel the school will not tolerate bullying.
4. Kids need to know that there is a true sense of collaboration, respect and trust between the two sets of adults involved, parents and school.

Cary Academy’s Statement of Community Values, Advisory Program, and policies for appropriate relationships all underscore our work to make these statements valid for every child at CA.

Along with our dedication to these tenets, the adults at Cary Academy are seeking to address student stress and anxiety in a number of ways.  As I write, Ellen Gooding (US Counselor) and Laura Werner (US Learning Specialist) are travelling to attend the Learning and the Brain conference on anxiety;  Robin Follet’s re-envisioning of the US administrative structure includes the creation of two Deans of Students positions to increase availability for student support; and US and MS learning support specialists are engaging in task-force conversations to make recommendations to the administration on other steps to take.

The good news is, experts on all fronts agree that resiliency is a skill that all individuals develop; no one has a predisposition to be more resilient than others.  To support this work, we at CA are engaging in conversations on campus and collaboratively with other schools to help address this national trend.  We ask that you also engage in conversations at home – does your child(ren) feel that the four earlier statements are true about CA?  Have a family discussion on the article “Resilience for teens: Got Bounce?” from the American Psychological Association.