Can't We Let Them Be Kids?

There are so many arguments out there about what's wrong with the educational system today. It's kids' faults, it's parents' faults, it's teachers' faults, it's politicians' faults, etc. We don't test enough. We test too little. There isn't enough math/science/reading. There isn't enough arts education. I think that truths can be found with many of these arguments, but there's one thing that seems more and more left by the wayside. There's too much focus on academics.
Now, don't get me wrong. I appreciate that in the present, it is essential to prepare students with the knowledge and skills necessary to be successful college students. It's getting harder and harder to get any job without a college degree. In among this, too, has been born a competition. Which kids are the most college ready? Which of them can complete college the fastest? And the burden has been placed on students to be all academics all the time and to be perfect at this. But I ask, at what cost?
At what cost? The question first occurred to me when I was taking Comparative Education in college. We each had to choose a country to research and present on regarding its educational system, and I chose Japan. My reason? Recently, everyone has lauded the educational systems of countries like Japan and China where students test so highly (given, their weakest students aren't tested, but I'll save that rant for another day). But by that point in my college career I had heard enough horror stories of what students in those countries experienced to find myself continually asking the question: "At what cost?" A number of years later, I don't remember the specifics of the educational system anymore (perhaps because, due to the current events portion of the project, my later research turned to merely trying to keep up with the events of the earthquake and tsunami that had hit the country days before the project was due), but I do remember thinking that it was one that would have likely pushed an overachieving perfectionist student like myself over the edge.
At the end of the project I held on to the positivity I found in the fact that in the United States we valued more than core academics. We value the whole child. Sure, there have been pushes to make K-12 education more rigorous, but there were enough people with level heads to keep the system from jumping off the deep end. These days, I'm not so sure.
My first year of teaching I was in a school that still got it. Recognizing that not all students identified with the academic side of school, there was a continual focus on helping students find their place any combination of academics, athletics, arts, and activities. And the school recognized the priority of balancing all of these. Academics are important, yes, but so other the other aspects of students' lives. High school is a time where they can still explore their interests and try different things. I learned the hard way that sometimes by the time you get to college, you're already to behind and inexperienced to have a real shot at trying something new. But more importantly, one of the core ideals of my personal educational philosophy is education of the whole child. Education is about more than reading, writing, and arithmetic (or any STEM field). It's about helping kids to become well-rounded people. It's about teaching them to be physically healthy. It's about teaching them to be emotionally healthy. And it's about teaching them to be socially healthy. And part of that is letting them be kids.
There was a time when my ideal of whole child education was only challenged by the frequency in which arts programs were being cut in schools across the nation. These days, it reaches deeper.
The school I'm at right now focuses on only academics. Yes, there are other opportunities for students, but the institution itself seems to only care about academics. The recognition of non-academic events and achievements happens, but is usually buried or talked about as if going through the motions. I feel like a member of an educational institution, but not of a community. And while I finally feel settled in enough to be comfortable, it's almost a daily occurrence that I am reminded that my own educational philosophy doesn't mesh with the school's.
I will say again, that a focus on academics isn't necessarily a bad thing. But there has to be balance, and I'm not seeing it right now. There's great pressure from the school, parents, and even the students' themselves to take on more and more difficult courses so that they are more well-prepared for college or so that they can have as many college credits as possible before they've even graduated from high school. I have had countless students drop some or all of their extracurricular activities this year just to try to keep up with their academics. Others were never even aloud to participate in activities in the first place. I see my high school freshmen and sophomores getting less sleep than I did as a college student because of their difficult course load. It's become almost a weekly tradition to have at least one lunch conversation with my colleagues about how many students are being pushed to do too much too fast in mathematics courses when they don't have the maturity and/or study skills to take on that kind of challenge. Heck, as a teacher, I feel guilty every time I take time out of class to have non-math related discussions with my students because I know how much content I have to cram in to a short period of time.
And it's not just my school. Conversations I had with teachers across the district when I was in a variety show reflected some of the same occurrences, and those teachers didn't always feel great about it either. My colleagues who have kids talk about the amount of homework their children do every night, and it's comparable to what we see with our own students. And tonight I read a news article about a Kindergarten program being canceled to allow more time for the students to learning to be able to be "college and career ready." And somehow this was the final straw.
I'm not saying that academics aren't important. And I'm not saying that being college and career ready aren't important. I'm just saying that there needs to be balance. It's no wonder that we're developing into a nation of workaholics who don't know when to take time for themselves and their families because that's what we're training kids to do from such an early age. They've got the majority of their lives to work. And I'm not saying that they shouldn't do any work at all. But there has to be balance. And it's not always about time management skills or laziness. Sometimes it's about trying to much, and being pressured to carry that load or more.
Can't we just let them be kids? Can't we let them have time to play? Can't we let them explore new things? Can't we let them have the time to spend with their families? Their friends? Can't we let them have some time to relax? Or at least to get the recommended amount of sleep each night?
I get it. Part of growing up is learning. So we can teach them academics, critical thinking, study skills, organizational skills, and whatever other college and workforce life skills they need. We spend decades of our lives working. We get only 18 years to be carefree, or relatively carefree, kids. It's not that long, and once it's gone, it's gone. And when we have our stressed-out, overworked days, don't we tend to wish we could return to the days when we were younger? So can't we also remember to just let them be kids. Because they've still got some of that time left, and when it's gone, it's gone, and there's no going back.