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Making Caring Common Researcher Speaks with St. Luke’s Parents
From Director of College Counseling Sonia Bell:
On June 6, Making Caring Common Research Project Senior Program Manager Trisha Ross Anderson was the speaker for the annual Parents’ Association/College Counseling evening. Anderson started off her presentation with a slide that surprised few of the 50 St. Luke’s parents in attendance. When forced to rank, most students in this national survey chose achievement as being more important than happiness and caring. This phenomenon carries over to the college process, where student achievement seems to be valued more than ethical and intellectual engagement. The Making Caring Common group has been reaching out to admission deans to discuss ways to create an admission process that reduces the excessive achievement pressure, promotes ethical engagement and recognizes the challenges of students who are economically disadvantaged. While she admitted that the research group did not have all of the answers and that outside factors, such as college rankings in U.S. News and World Report, have a major influence on the admission process, she said that her talks with admission deans shows the need for a conversation.
Anderson presented the concept of a parent compact where parents in the community decide the norms regarding their students. She provided such examples as we will not allow our students to engage in standardized test prep until a specific time and we will not allow our students to participate in more than a certain number of activities or take a specific number of AP/honors courses at one time.
During the question/answer session at the end of the program, one parent expressed her concern that some students are not stressed by the pressure to achieve and might be fine engaging in a lot of activities or taking a lot of AP/honors courses. Anderson responded that while the parent compact might not be able to be applied to all students, the norms of the community will be clearly expressed and parents will be challenged to think when they encourage or support behaviors that run counter to the compact. She encouraged parents who want to discuss the concept of a parent compact further or who have questions regarding Turning the Tide to reach out to her. Interested parents can contact Sonia Bell for Trisha’s contact information.
Anderson shared these two downloads for parents: Creating A Sane, Healthy, Admissions Process With Your Teens-Conversation Starters and More “Caring” College Admissions-5 Tips For Parents
St. Luke’s School is a secular (non-religious), private school in New Canaan, CT for grades 5 through 12 serving over 40 towns in Connecticut and New York. Our exceptional academics and diverse co-educational community foster students’ intellectual and ethical development and prepare them for top colleges. St. Luke’s Leading with Humanity curriculum builds the commitment to serve and the confidence to lead.
