"Doing School": How We are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students

Denise Clark Pope

Yale University Press, 2001 - Education - 212 pages

This book offers a revealing--and troubling--view of today's high school students and the ways they pursue high grades and success. Veteran teacher Denise Pope follows five highly regarded students through a school year and discovers that these young people believe getting ahead requires manipulating the system, scheming, lying, and cheating. On the one hand, they work hard in school, participate in extracurricular activities, serve their communities, earn awards and honors, and appear to uphold school values. But on the other hand, they feel that in order to get ahead they must compromise their values. In short, they "do school"--that is, they are not really engaged with learning nor can they commit to such values as integrity and community.

The words and actions of these five students--two boys and three girls from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds--underscore the frustrations of being caught in a "grade trap" that pins future success to high grades and test scores. Their stories raise critical questions that are too important for parents, educators, and community leaders to ignore. Are schools cultivating an environment that promotes intellectual curiosity, cooperation, and integrity? Or are they fostering anxiety, deception, and hostility? Do today's schools inadvertently impede the very values they claim to embrace? Is the "success" that current assessment practices measure the kind of success we want for our children?

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"Doing school": how we are creating a generation of stressed out, materialistic, and miseducated students

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In this important and timely study, Pope, a veteran teacher, curriculum expert, and lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education, offers a revealing look at the quandaries of today's high ...

Contents

• Welcome to Faircrest High: 1
• Kevin Romoni A 38 Kind of Guy: 7
• The Good Student: 10
• The Competitor: 16
• The Engaged Learner: 22
• Eve Lin Life as a High School Machine: 29
• Going for the Maximum: 33
• Survival of the Fittest: 37
• Enjoying the Process: 44
• Teresa Gomez I Want a Future: 50
• Dancing as Engagement: 54
• The Search for Engagement: 57
• Michelle Spence Keeping Curiosity Alive?: 81
• An Alternate Course: 85
• Sacrificing Academics: 97
• Learning by Doing What You Love: 105
• Roberto Morales When Values Stand in the Way: 117
• Diligence: 123
• Anxiety: 129
• Playing by the Rules: 132
• Stress: 140
• Fun: 145
• The Predicament of Doing School: 149
• Doing School: 150
• The Grade Trap: 153
• Constraints of the School System: 157
• We Get What We Bargain For: 166
• If Only Things Could Be Different: 171
• Epilogue: 176
• Notes: 189
• References: 207

Popular passages

Page 207 - Csikszentmihalyi, M., and Larson, R. (1984). Being adolescent: Conflict and growth in the teenage years.

About the author

Denise Pope is a lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education.

Bibliographic information

• Title: "Doing School": How We are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students
• Author: Denise Clark Pope
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Yale University Press, 2001
• ISBN: 0300098332, 9780300098334
• Length: 212 pages
• Subjects: Education / Secondary; Education / Student Life & Student Affairs