The trend I have seen in my 6 years as an educator is the focus on passing standardized tests, stacking up on AP courses to boot GPA points, and being involved in so many extra-curricular activities that nothing is enjoyable and the quality of achievement is sub par. This was very apparent when I was a girls soccer coach and placed in too situations where the girls were double booked or stressed out from overload.
There is an article in NEA today that touched on taking tougher courses to boost college admission odds. In my school district our school grade has been reformulated to reflect different criteria and some of it is the number of AP courses taken and AP Exams passed. Too many students take AP classes and are either not at that level or our unable to do the amount of work necessary to succeed in the class, let alone pass the AP exam.
I wonder where the days of inspiring a student to be interested in the content and they begin to love being in the class have gone? There is so much focus on the standard tests and the remedial teaching strategies in the classroom that creative inspiration has gone to the wayside.
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Excellent observations. It's good for our students to be ambitious, the question is where does the drive come from. I've encountered more students who have no drive and no model of "success" which is equally as sad as the over-worked. I agree that education tends to be too scatter-shot with almost no depth and very little room for students to develop a passion for something.
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