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Where Is The Outrage?

Arthur M. Horwitz
Publisher / Executive Editor
ahorwitz@renmedia.us

I

n September, the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit shared the results
of its Community Needs survey, and
for all those who care about the well-being
of our children, action must be taken to
address the mental health issues
facing our youth here at home and
nationwide.
More than half of teen respon-
dents said they or their friends
were “struggling with anxiety,”
and 42 percent of respondents
said they were struggling with low
self-esteem, sadness or depres-
Steve
sion. They self-reported that “aca-
Freedman
demic pressure and difficulty with
schoolwork” were major drivers
for these health challenges.
Ironically, these same teen respondents
believe that placing more demands on them-
selves — subject tutoring and college testing
preparations — would help. Data show that
in many instances, helicopter parents are
adding to these pressures by overscheduling
extracurricular activities to fashion the out-
come they desire for their children.
What are we doing to our precious, sacred
souls?
Multiple psychological and emotional
studies and surveys from the American
Psychiatric Association, MedWeb, Dialogue
in Clinical Neuroscience, American College
Health Association and Born This Way
Foundation conclude that today’s teenagers
are more stressed than their parents were as
teens.
Last year, 123,000 students surveyed from
153 colleges found that more than 50 per-
cent of them felt overwhelming anxiety, and
about one-third developed depression during
the academic year.
In the past year, 25 percent of all children
and teenagers experienced a mental disor-

der, and depression was considered the No.
1 illness among kids between the ages of
10 and 19. Another study found that high
school students are routinely tired, bored
and stressed.
The Detroit data concerning our
teen’s mental well-being reflect the
national data. Our kids are stressed,
anxious, depressed and often bored
in numbers that no adult should
think is acceptable. The teens them-
selves rightly identify the causes —
academic pressure and schoolwork.
But I strongly suspect many parents
are not even aware of the levels of
stress and anxiety their children are
enduring.
Parents must do their part and pay much
more attention to what is going on in our
schools. What prepared them to succeed will
not prepare today’s children. The culture of
schools is not the same as it was a generation
ago — the testing and academic demands
are worse, and much of it has limited to no
real educational value.
One of the best high schools in the U.S.,
the Lawrenceville School in Princeton,
N.J., asked pupils in September to retake
simplified versions of tests on which they
had scored an average of 87 percent three
months earlier, in June. The results were an
average of 58 percent, and “not one student
retained mastery of the key concepts they
appear to have learned,” according to an
article in the Washington Post.
We must internalize the difference
between schooling and learning to help
improve educational experiences and
relieve the unnecessary stress students feel.
Schooling prepares students to achieve at
school, while learning prepares students to
achieve at life. Mastering the skill of tak-
ing a test, standardized or otherwise, helps

students to succeed at schooling, but as the
Lawrenceville experiment indicates, it does
little else. In fact, 90 percent of information
that is memorized and then tested disap-
pears.
In the U.S., we continue to fund cookie-
cutter schools that force students to take
courses based on a curriculum originally
developed in 1892. While biology, chemistry
and physics are still the required sciences of
the day, how many schools require computer
science as a course required for graduation?
AP courses measure a student’s stamina
and ability to memorize, but they actually
emphasize the lower levels of thinking in
the taxonomy of learning. Research shows
that teacher-created, challenging courses
are more meaningful and authentic than AP
courses, and yet we pile AP courses on our
students.
Most high school students know that
schooling is a game to get into college, and
many college graduates know what they did
in undergraduate school did not really pre-
pare them for their jobs. In fact, most college
graduates are not even in jobs related to their
degree.
The world has changed and continues to
change at a rapid pace. Parents need to pay
closer attention to what is going on in our
schools and what should really matter.
I applaud Federation for following up with
key stakeholders who engage with teenag-
ers to discuss the results of the Community
Needs survey. Because as they indicated, if
our children are not mentally distressed by
the time they arrive at college, then, tragi-
cally, many more will become mentally ill in
college.
The time for moral outrage is now.

*

Steve Freedman is the head of school at Hillel Day
School of Metropolitan Detroit in Farmington Hills.

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letters

JCRC Comparison On
Refugees Is Unfair

Richard Krugel, president of the Jewish
Community Relations Council, suggests
that Oakland County Executive L. Brooks
Patterson’s opposition to refugees being
welcomed into Oakland County is “cal-
lous and reckless fear-mongering” and
compares it to America’s World War II
rejection of Jewish refugees who were
denied entry in the United States because
of the anti-Semitic attitudes that prevailed
in Washington at the time, and who were
returned to Europe and certain death at the
hands of the Nazis.
The European Jews who were sadly
turned away from our shores and perished

6 October 6 • 2016

as a result, were not terrorists or threats to
our Western civilization. America’s deci-
sion to turn their ship around and send
them back to a certain death is a despicable
footnote to the Holocaust.
I’ve known Brooks over 50 years and
know that his actions aren’t callous or fear-
mongering; and he is a valued friend to
his Jewish constituents. I also know that
Brooks is not categorically opposed to the
resettling of Syrian refugees; he is only
reflecting the statements of every govern-
ment official, from military generals to the
director of the FBI, who all agree that the
fleeing refugees cannot be properly vetted
at this time, and that, among them, could
be planted terrorists, intent on attack-
ing us on our soil. In my opinion, Brooks
is advocating for the best interests of all

Americans.
Krugel’s unfair comparison and per-
sonal attack on Patterson certainly doesn’t
reflect the feelings of our Jewish communi-
ty and appears to be politically motivated.

Jeffrey Leib
West Bloomfield

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