Reply to ISO Intellectually Rigorous Upper School without the pressure cooker atmosphere & WHICH TO AVOID?

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[quote=Anonymous]     Can't speak about any other school, but at St. Andrew's our experience has been that that the students and teachers usually have very good, supportive relationships in the first place.  The faculty very much believes in trying to find means of helping students learn to motivate themselves.   Of course there are still outside motivations (grades, deadlines for parts of large projects, etc.) but most teachers structure things so that as long as the student is trying and is in an appropriate level class to begin with, he/she should be able to be reasonably  successful.  So long as students plan ahead and inform the teachers about a scheduling conflict that may interfere with a work deadline, they usually can work something out.

The  key is that students need to feel comfortable approaching teachers, emailing them, etc., and the teachers need to know where to draw a line and where to be flexible.  It is not unusual for my kids to email a teacher over a weekend or holiday break with a question about an assignment.  They may not get an immediate reply -- and we sometimes discourage them from asking unless it is really important -- but this openness coupled with reasonable respect for each other's time is the culture of the school.  Part of high school is learning how to advocate for oneself -- a life skill that carries over -- and they work on that a lot which, in turn , reduces stress.   That said, there is no way around the fact that some students get stressed about tests, that kids with heavy course loads have a lot of homework, etc. -- especially junior year and senior year with college apps -- but the school is a big believer in the idea that kids -- even teenagers -- should want to come to school and enjoy their time there while they learn.  Probably doesn't work for every single kid and certainly not every moment of every day all years, but I think the vast, vast. majority of students really like St. Andrews -- their teachers and their friends -- and that reduces stress.  St. Andrew's believes that happy kids learn better - strange as that simple proposition may seem -- and actually work hard at that as a key principle that permeates the school.  I don't mean to sound like a cheerleader, but this really is a core philosophy of the school and it has worked very well for my kids.    [/quote]

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