The Well-Balanced Student
Many of our teachers attended a presentation in Tenafly last week by Dr. Denise Pope (Stanford) titled “The Well-Balanced Student”. Both the Tenafly and Cresskill public schools sponsored the talk along with RHOWR (Rational HOmeWork Review), a group of Tenafly parents connected about the role of homework among the stressors impacting their children.
Dr. Pope is particularly interested in student voices and the students’ perspectives of school. She focuses on academic stress and its consequences for students’ mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. She authored “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students (Yale University Press, 2001) and directed the SOS: Stressed Out Student (2003-2008) which has become Challenge Success: which focuses on strategies for healthy, engaged kids and recently published Overworked and Underprepared.
Ms. Maria thought the following points were of particular interest:
- Unstructured play time is the most important factor in developing children’s creativity, enjoyment of learning, and lifetime mental health. Tis is true for children from pre-school through high-school. (Play time and social time — time with no instructional purpose, not music lessons, art lessons, organized sports, tutoring, etc.) Dr. Pope described it as part of Playtime, Downtime, Familytime (PDF), which constitute the protective factors for children (ensuring they grow up to be healthy, well-adjusted adults).
- More homework and after-school tutoring does not lead to improved learning. In fact, some students become “robo students” who may be excellent at getting good grades and test scores, but are disengaged, unable to solve complex problems, and unable to master 21st century skills. Dr. Pope said, “Don’t confuse rigor with load.” More schoolwork (load) is pointless (even detrimental) if it’s not the right kind of work (rigor).
- The importance of “successful” failure. No one can get it right the first time, every time; certainly not if they’re really learning things that are new, important, or difficult. To learn and develop children must have the opportunity to try, fail (without consequences), and try again until they achieve competence or mastery. (We do just that in the Montessori classroom with our Montessori works).
- Finally, SLEEP. Dr. Pope emphasized that the most important factor for learning and mental health is adequate sleep. She said Kindergarten 12+hours, elementary school 11+, middle school 10+, and high school 9+. This is every day (so night sleep plus naps), not just an average over a week. In fact, she noted that ADD/ADHD behaviors are often the result of sleep deprivation and are easily addressed (with more sleep).
At The Montessori House we already practice what Dr. Pope preached in many cases. It’s inherent in the Montessori Method to give children the opportunity to learn (to try repeatedly until competence is achieved), also to give children control of their time (choosing works, or choosing when they need downtime or a snack), and we build in some solid play time each morning and afternoon.
We generally recommend against tutoring or math/literacy enrichment programs outside of school, and encourage parents to limit the number of structured programs children attend. Instead we always recommend parents read to their children, play with their children, and arrange unstructured play with friends outside of school (or in our After Care program). And we couldn’t agree more with Dr. Pope on the importance of sleep — we see the difference it makes in our students’ behavior and ability to learn.