Speaker, Movie Describe Excessive Pressure on Students

Photo Submitted

Education author Alfie Kohn will speak and the film "Road to Nowhere" will be shown as part of discussion of "academic success."

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Author and speaker Alfie Kohn says students feel excessive pressure to perform well on tests at a cost to their desire to learn and their happiness.

Several groups at the University of Arkansas will bring Kohn to campus Thursday, April 5, to talk to parents, educators and others about the price children pay because of this pressure to succeed academically. In his presentation, “Pushed Too Hard: Rescuing Education From an Achievement-Crazy Culture,” Kohn invites his audience to rethink basic assumptions about competition, school achievement and “the relationship between how we’re raising our kids and how we hope they will turn out.”

Kohn, of Boston, will speak at 7 p.m. April 5 in Giffels Auditorium in Old Main on the University of Arkansas campus.

Kohn is the author of 12 books on education, parenting and human behavior, including Punished by Rewards (1993), Beyond Discipline (1996), The Schools Our Children Deserve (1999), Unconditional Parenting (2005), The Homework Myth (2006), and, most recently, Feel-Bad Education (2011).  He has written for most of the leading education periodicals and has appeared twice on Oprah. Time magazine described him as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades (and) test scores.” 

Kohn works with educators and parents across the country and speaks regularly at national conferences. He asks what parents mean when they say they want their children to be successful.

“In some neighborhoods, that word translates as making higher grades and test scores than other people’s children ... so they’ll be accepted by elite colleges … so they’ll get high-paying jobs … so they can … well, what?” Kohn asks. “(Sociologist) Erich Fromm once observed that ‘few parents have the courage to care more for their children’s happiness than for their success.’ Indeed, research shows that affluent, high-achieving students are more likely to suffer from depression – and less likely to value learning for its own sake. ”

Also planned is a screening of Race to Nowhere: The Dark Side of America’s Achievement Culture to be shown at 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 2, in Room 166, the Graduate Education Building auditorium, on the University of Arkansas campus. The 2009 documentary is described as a call to mobilize families, educators and policymakers to challenge current assumptions on how best to prepare the youth of America to become healthy, bright, contributing and leading citizens.

“These presentations offer a different story about education than the one often found in the popular media,” said Chris Goering, assistant professor of secondary education and an organizer of the events. “As with any conversation, different perspectives help produce deeper, more meaningful dialogue, and the organizers hope parents, students, community members and education professionals of all types will participate by attending and engaging. I doubt there is anything more important than school in the future health of this region or our country, and the work by Kohn and the director of the film represent important, essential questions that need to be discussed from balanced perspectives.”

A panel discussion is planned following the film screening.

Groups sponsoring the talk and film are the Center for Children and Youth, the Brown Chair in English Literacy, the College of Education and Health Professions Dean Tom Smith, the interdisciplinary doctoral program in public policy, the department of curriculum and instruction, the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project and Springdale Public Schools. Both events are free and open to the public.