Dr. Helen Hsu

Race to Nowhere - Fremont event to discuss testing & pressure on kids

I will be speaking as a member of a panel after the 7 pm showing May 21, 2011 of Race to Nowhere.  Please come watch the movie that has parents and communities talking about how high stakes testing is damaging education and child health. 

PRESS RELEASE: May 6, 2011

Contacts:

Lara York, Fremont Education Foundation 510-501-9675

Debra Watanuki, City of Fremont’s Human Relations Commission 510-921-8086

Sherea Westra, Fremont Unified District Teachers Association 510-299-4161

RACE SO WE ALL WIN

FREMONT, CA:  School reform has become an urgent national issue which must be discussed at our local level, which is why the Fremont Education Foundation (FEF), the City of Fremont’s Human Relations Commission (HRC) and the Fremont Unified District Teachers Association (FUDTA) have joined together to bring “Race to Nowhere” to Fremont on Saturday, May 21^st for two screenings at 2:00 and 7:00 p.m.

Unlike the other education documentaries, “Race to Nowhere” is the only film that shows what is actually happening to our kids as a result of current national policies and practices obsessed with testing, performance and competition rather than meaningful teaching and learning. “Race to Nowhere” finally gives voice to those on the front lines who are most affected by education policies - the students and teachers themselves. “Race to Nowhere” also is the only film to spotlight the intersection between health and education. “Race to Nowhere” invites all stakeholders to come together to find workable solutions. 

Filmmaker Vicki Abeles shares,  “As a mother, I experienced the stress firsthand and realized that no one was talking about it.  I felt compelled to speak out about this crisis by making a film and giving voice to the students, teachers, and parents.  I wanted to expose a deeper truth about our education system.  We are graduating a generation of robo-students, unable to think and work independently, creatively and collaboratively.”

“After viewing this film, I was compelled to find a way for more Fremontonians to share in this powerful experience and have meaningful conversations with the students, parents, grandparents,  teachers, business leaders, civic leaders throughout the City to find ways help our children lead healthier lives.  Our lives are successful not only measured our accomplishments but our journeys, mistakes and happiness.  When do we let our children today make mistakes?” Lara York, Board Member Fremont Education Foundation and Fremont Unified School District. 

“FUDTA invites all its members to explore these issues, together with the community, to share our experiences and hear those of others,” Sherea Westra, Vice-President of the Fremont Unified District Teachers Association.

“The health and well-being of our children is fundamental for our communities to thrive; it is a top priority for our society’s future.  We cannot pass the buck and say this is a problem for the schools to solve.  The solution must come from the entire community joining together to forge true reforms to ensure that our children have every opportunity to be healthy, inspired and contributing members of our communities,” Debra Watanuki, Commissioner Human Relations Commission.

“Race to Nowhere” is a call to action to challenge current assumptions on how to best prepare the youth of America to become healthy, bright, contributing and leading citizens. After seeing the film, your views on education and childhood will forever be changed.  The film empowers everyone to get involved and take ownership of what’s happening in our schools and communities. 

“Race to Nowhere”

Saturday, May 21^st

Washington West, Anderson Auditorium

2:00 p.m. screening followed by a discussion

7:00 p.m. screening followed by a panel discussion

Doors open 30 minutes before.

Purchase tickets online at: www.racetonowhere.com

$10 in advance.  $15 at the door.

Seating is limited.

 

 

The Fremont Education Foundation is a non-profit, tax-exempt, public charity, established in 1991, to encourage increased community involvement and investment in our schools. Our members include parents, educators, school administrators, business people, and others from our community.  We are an independent foundation that works closely with, but is separate from, the Fremont Unified School District.

The Fremont Unified District Teachers Association was chartered in 1965 and is the professional organization for the certificated personnel of the Fremont Unified School District. Our total membership is 1,800 full and part-time professionals. We are a charter of the California Teachers Association/National Education Association (CTA/NEA).

The City of Fremont's Human Relations Commission promotes and helps create a community
environment in which all men, women and children, regardless of race, religion, national origin, gender, disability or sexual orientation, may live, learn, work and play in harmony.

Education Asian Style

I was thrilled to see our Asian Canadian neighbors making a serious attempt to talk with their communities about the narrow and unhealthy over-emphasis on University education & particular areas of study:

Educators encourage Asian education options

It seems obvious really.  It is statistically impossible for the vast majority of Asian young people to all be accepted into "brand name" universities.  Also impossible, that those who do get accepted, will all want to be doctors, lawyers, and engineers.
(Oh, OKay, maybe a professor or an MBA would be all right so long as the school was sufficiently fancy.)

There is little use for person in the real world whose only skills are in memorizing textbooks or code.  What about civic mindedness, empathy, self reflection, morality, intuition, creativity, independence, bravery, kindness, or charisma?

Forcing young people into ill fitting majors at ill fitting universities is more likely to lead to anxiety and depression than a lifetime of joy.  I know many parents push this so hard because they think checking off the list of educational accomplishments is some kind of guaranteed ticket to the good life.  It simply isn't so. 

I know unemployed Ivy League graduates.  I also know fantastically happy, creative, and wealthy State college or community college graduates.  I am fond of cheerfully pointing out to clients that I probably never had a 4.0 since Junior high school!  They look shocked.  I think they are shocked that I would admit such a shameful (gasp!) thing openly, but I also hope they are comprehending my point that lack of academic stardom did not keep me from finding well-paying work whichI love.  I never had a stellar GPA because I was busy. Busy with drama, dance classes, friends, volunteer work (and this was before schools required volunteer hours), hiking, traveling internationally, and working part-time.  What I lost in grade points I gained in spades in life experience. 

Many of my clients who did what they were told to all their lives have made the unpleasant discovery as young adults that they do not know now how to self-direct.  And that all their hard work and studying did not make life feel meaningful.
That maybe they should have followed their original dream of being a social worker, actor, mechanic, fireman, chef, or dancer...

Certainly some parents are understanding now the value of balancing a child's humanity with their academic achievements.  I am glad that as a community we are dialogueing about this topic.  Children are meant to be more than show ponies who are loved only if they fulfill their parents academic dreams.
And planning a child's life path from Kindergarten through graduate school for them is unhealthy.  Education, true wisdom comes from living, so let your child truly live.

Retail Therapy getting you Down?

It seems that us citizens of the United States are taking a long hard look at our spending habits.  Not so much  because it's fun - but because we're living in the middle of a financial hangover the likes of which most of us have never seen before. 

On the one hand, we have Wall Street urging us to go shopping because it's patriotic to prop up the economy.  On the other, our neighbors are getting foreclosed and our credit card bills inch skyward.  We worry that there will be no safety net come retirement age, yet we keep buying luxurious to banish such frightening thoughts.

My San Francisco office is located close to Westfield Mall (featuring Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom) and Union Square - a world class retail destination.  Yet watching the bag-laden shoppers mill about each week, actually reduces my urges to shop.  Talking with clients and friends also makes me mindful about the way, and the reasons many of us shop to our own detriment.

Perhaps you too have found yourself shopping, browsing because you are bored, sad, anxious.  A new outfit, auto part, shoes, appliance or small electronic seems like just the thing for distraction.  In popular culture we joke about "retail therapy" all the time.  Retail therapy being the use of shopping and spending to ease our emotional aches and pains.

While shopping is not physically addictive like amphetamines or alcohol - it can be incredibly behaviorally addictive; like gambling or sexual compulsion.  People have told me they buy everything from new shoes to new cars when they feel a lack of confidence.  They buy luxury brand cosmetics or colognes to spackle over their bruised egos.

The problem is that such quick fixes fail to address our true needs.  It may be uncomfortable to sit with the actual anger or insecurity that plagues us- but that's step one in remedying such issues at the core level.  Instead, many Americans find themselves with a pile of stuff which not only failed to solve their frustrations - but also heaped on a burden of debt, guilt, or shame.

To learn more in a supportive setting about how others are curbing their debt-producing habits:

Debtors Anonymous

Be free of Worry in 2010

"Use your imagination not to scare yourself to death- but to Inspire yourself to Life"   -Adele Brookman

As we all pause for a moment to breathe at the end of 2009, let's prepare ourselves for the coming year.  It shall soon be the Year of the Tiger, 2010.  Tigers may be ferocious creatures, but they are also felines that  play and purr. 

Such is life overall, capable of causing fear & suffering, but also capable of gentle beauty and contentment.

Think of that laundry list of fears you carry in your head.  The What if's and the If only's.  The fears of swine flu and vandals, social humiliation and natural disasters.  If you take the time to calmly step back and analyze, you will likely see that most of the fears never materialized.

People tell me all the time about their fears: that a professor will yell at them, a lover will leave them, a colleague will hate their work, children will become gang members, cars will break down etc.  Do such painful things happen sometimes? Sure they do. But not often (especially for those of us blessed enough to live in industrialized countries), or for nearly as long as the time we spend fearing and ruminating over the possibilities.  

And let's say something feared does occur.  Let's say a social advance gets spurned.  Ouch.  Do you replay the awkward moment repeatedly and masochistically in your mind?  Until it seems like your destiny?  Why not let the memory grow distant, float away into the past where it belongs?   Your actual destiny is built upon the ashes of attempts and practice shots.  Don't call them failures.  Life is generous in allowing multiple do-overs.

My hope is that in the year to come dear reader, you will purposefully choose to employ your ample imagination for inspiration. 

Now I realize you are more familiar with using that imagination for self torture and rumination.  Old habits are tough to break.  Those positivity and creativity mental muscles still exist for you, it's time to dust them off and dream big.  The past is past.  Learn from it, learn to laugh at yourself, and move forward.  The present is a gift rich with potential.  The future is unwritten, don't allow your anxious mind to fool  you into confusing fears with facts.

Helicopter Parents & Hothouse Children

I  have been dismayed, if not surprised, by the number of clients who report feelings of anxiety and inadequacy which stem from lifelong pressures to perform, achieve, measure up, “make us proud” etc.

Life is maximized by moderation, a sense of balance. 

Children flourish when they are challenged to learn and grow, but they wither and become distorted when pressured incessantly to perform.  I encourage all parents to teach the joys of excellence in learning, but to be wary of becoming those stage parents or “helicopter parents” who suck all enjoyment and meaning out of achievement.

The problem with over-scheduling and over-orchestrating children’s lives and learning, is that ironically, we fail to teach children how to truly succeed.

As painful as it is, sometimes we need to allow children to experience mistakes and losses.  Not in cases where their physical safety is concerned, but in terms of learning.  Not earning a straight A or 1^st place all the time are valuable experiences for a child to learn about effort and humility.  Restraining ourselves from micromanaging their schedules and activities allows them to learn organizational skills and a sense of innate motivation.

 

A few modern day terms relevant to this topic:

 

Helicopter Parents:

Helicopter parents is a term that refers to overbearing parents who “hover” like a helicopter around their children.  These are parents who go beyond advocating and helping their children, and have crossed into the realm of enmeshment, interfering, or over-control of their children. 

 

Hothouse Children: 

Hothouse children are children whose parents push them into learning more quickly and earlier than is normal or appropriate for their developmental age.  The expression comes from “hothouse” as in the technique for delicate, exotic, prized green-housed plants which can not survive in normal conditions.  The parents of Hothouse children (and their desire for a genius or prodigy) are the source of the accelerated learning, not the innate desires of the child.

Many former Hothouse children wind up as young adults who are haunted by a persistent aura of anxiety.  Some feel that their actual accomplishments never measured up to the lofty demands of parents.  Some feel at a loss to define who they are and what actually drives them in life – without a parent or authority telling them what to do.  Others seem disappointed when their friends, partner, or boss does not fawn or focus on them like a star or genius the way their parents used to.

Some former Hothouse children rebelled from the suffocating push of their parents-refusing to ever play tennis or the violin ever again after one too many rants from their Dad or Coach.  In some respects that kind of rebellion can be viewed as a survival mechanism for a child who is trying to stave off what feels like oppression.

In hindsight, I am grateful that my parents made efforts to challenge, but not force me into enrichment activities.  I was strongly encouraged to participate in piano, flute, and ballet recitals, kung fu lessons - but I was allowed to give them up after a fair attempt.  They did not oppress me with their opinions about what colleges I should apply to, and did not strong-arm me into the subject major of their choosing.  I have not been a perfect student since Kindergarten, (my mother to this day happily recalls my K teacher telling her I was "the very best student").  I don't view this is a failure, but part of the path to become a well-rounded human being.  My goal was never perfect A's  and trophies-it was meaning, passion, service, and true learning.

 

Wasn’t it Mr. Rogers who soothed generations of children by reassuring young viewers that he liked them “just the way you are”?  Ultimately each person must learn to recognize and live at peace with themselves.  In the long run whether someone is a piano prodigy or national science champion is far less important than whether they were loved even when they didn’t “win”.  Childhood memories full of laughter and warmth will provide more lifelong strength than memories of endless tournaments, contests, recitals.