Blog 21: Transforming the School System: From a Performance Culture to a Development Culture

Transforming the School System: From a Performance Culture to a Development Culture

This blog is incredibly interesting because I am going to talk about some of the results that came out of co-creation sessions with adolescents. Several young people, Like Charlie, The Healthy Generation (DGG), MIND and other health foundations came together to create the framework conditions for a mentally healthy learning environment.

These conditions are the bottom line for various activities and initiatives in education that focus on the mental well-being of our school-age and college-age youth. An important note is that high performance pressure in education is not only caused by education itself, but also has other causes. This is something I am going to talk about next week.

The research indicates that there is too much emphasis on grades and cognitive skills and not enough time and attention to the needs and talents of the individual student. The research indicates that there may be several solutions to this. Therefore, the following four solutions should be explored further:

1. Placing less emphasis on achievement in society
2. Reducing the use of social media and cell phones
3. Teaching young people to cope with performance pressure
4. More focus on social-emotional skills in education

The topic of achievement pressure is becoming increasingly important, as ten years ago 16% of secondary school students reported experiencing a lot of pressure from schoolwork, and that number has risen to 45% in 2021.

Education itself, or specifically the education system, is not cited as the primary cause of experiencing achievement pressure among young people. Nevertheless, a majority of Dutch people indicate that they experience performance pressure in secondary education and MBO/HBO/WO as (very) unhealthy. Performance pressure in primary education is also perceived as unhealthy rather than healthy.

Key insights include that there should be more appreciation for practical education and related subject areas, and less pressure to pursue higher education, with a central role for parents in this. We must compare and perform less relative to the average, relative to others, thus creating more room for developing one's own talent. This includes the idea of ​​less testing and comparing performance in grades, and more room to be allowed to make mistakes.

Finally, the role and vision of teachers also deserves more attention. The teachers who participated in the research even more strongly emphasize the unhealthy pressure to perform in secondary education. More insight into knowledge, attitude and behavior, and the solutions that teachers perceive themselves as most promising, requires deeper and additional research among a broader selection of teachers.

The above information comes from the Cooperating Health Foundations survey. If you want to know more about it, check out the entire article here.

Sources used:

• "Understanding achievement pressure - by the Dutch public," report by Collaborating Health Funds.

Jurren van der Gun
Like Charlie