Do Rivertowns Honors Students Experience Too Much Stress?

High school juniors and seniors can all breathe sighs of relief that their AP (Advanced Placement) exams have just finished and the rest of the school year should be a comparative breeze. 

But was the anxiety leading up to them worth the sense of accomplishment they feel once they were done?

While most teachers concur that their students handle the stress well and don't over-reach in the number of honors and AP courses they take, Ardsley High School English teacher Brian Gutherman said he was surprised at the number of his students who expressed abnormally heightened senses of pressure two weeks before the English Language and Composition exam.  

Gutherman polled his students, asking them to rate their stress levels on a scale of one to five—with five being the highest. Of his 54 AP students, 31 said they felt an extreme level of stress; 13 said they felt "quite a bit of stress;" seven said "the stress was palpable but manageable;" and only three of his juniors said they had "no recognition of stress."

"Apparently it's a real issue," Gutherman said. "I feel terrible. It's a sweet group. They are so earnest and hard-working."

Dobbs Ferry mother and PTSA member Lori DiRusso said stress was also problematic in her district—which offers more International Baccalaureate exams than APs.

In a meeting at a parent's house—not specifically to discuss this issue—DiRusso recounted one mother's observation that despite her child being very bright, "'She's a horrible test-taker,'" which adds to the level of anxiety. The mother elaborated that her daughter was thriving in college, where students can select classes that require more papers than in-class tests. 

DiRusso added that another mother disclosed that her daughter was so anxious she'd actually vomited as a result of the pressure to do well on exams.

All four Rivertowns PTSA's sponsored the viewing of the film, Race to Nowhere last year.

Unlike documentaries such as Waiting for Superman—which emphasize the number of failing schools and students who slip through the educational cracks–Race to Nowhere's official website states that its mission is to mobilize schools and parents to stop pushing kids to the point of breakdowns.

According to the site, the film features:

...the heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren’t developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what’s best for their kids, Race to Nowhere points to the silent epidemic in our schools: cheating has become commonplace, students have become disengaged, stress-related illness, depression and burnout are rampant, and young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired.

Why would the mainly parent-run organizations screened this film if anxiety weren't an issue for their children?

Jeanette Cocur, the director guidance at said that she personally hadn't seen many kids on the verge of breaking down during her six years in her role, but she admitted that, "Some kids may not express their anxiety to guidance counselors—it's something parents are more likely to see."

"We'd love it if more kids came down to guidance and shared their feelings with the counselors here," she added. "I'm sure most of the anxiety manifests itself at home. I do know that after sports practices and other activities, kids stay up until 2 a.m. working on homework and preparing for tests."

Cocur emphasized the confounding variable that the schools aren't the only ones to blame for students' anxiety.

"So many other things factor into these kids lives—competition with peers, competition within families and extra-curricular activities can't be discounted," she said. "Also some kids feel the need to be perfect; it's just an inherent personality thing."

Advanced Placement teachers Chris Barry and Ray Serrano disagree that their students experience undue levels of anxiety. 

"At the end of the year, the stress does ramp up, but I believe that they feel comfortable enough that they're going to do well that it isn't a major issue," said Serrano, who teaches AP Calculus. 

Barry, a long-time United States History teacher in Irvington said that while some kids get caught up in the "more is better" mentality when it comes to AP and honors classes, "most choose courses wisely."

He agreed with Cocur that much of the stress among students is self-driven. 

Although Irvington has open admission for AP courses, Barry said that very few drop out of his class each year.

"I think it's great that they want to push themselves," he said. "I think most of our kids have realistic expectations of how they are going to do. Even if they get 2s [on a scale of 1 to 5] they know they learned a lot more in the course of the year than if they hadn't pushed themselves, and I'm fine with that."