The New High School Kids

Not long ago, grownups bewailed the laziness of U.S. high school students. Now the cry is: "Why do they work so hard and worry so much about getting into college?" In a recent speech titled "A Dull Boy Is Jack," Colorado College President Louis T. Benezet warned that high school is fast becoming a "cramming session" in which the chief dynamic is "quite simply: more." The once lusty word "excellence," writes Harvard Psychologist David C. McClelland, now means only "the ability to take examinations and get good grades in school." As alarmists see it, a strictly academic "meritocracy" is breeding bloodless youngsters with no real joy in life, love or learning.

Is this picture accurate? Last week an overwhelming majority of high school teachers interviewed by TIME across the U.S. pooh-poohed it. Instead, they hailed a "salubrious" ferment in their classrooms. "This is the most exciting thing in my career," says English Teacher Harold R. Keables, veteran of 27 years at Denver's South High School. "There is a new appreciation of intellectual achievement. The kids are perhaps more serious, but not solemn or glum or dull. They are on fire with enthusiasm for learning."

"When I started teaching 15 years ago," says Chemistry Teacher Lawrence D. Lynch of Beverly Hills (Calif.) High School. "I felt overprotective toward the serious student. This is no longer necessary. There is no more finger pointing, no more 'I'll get you after school' from poorer students. Our happiest students are our best students. The status they have in and out of the classroom is remarkable."

Walking on Eggs. There are indeed cool-eyed children plotting records that "will look good" to colleges. There is reason to worry about all the emphasis on test scores. There are panicky youngsters who steal rivals' notebooks to sabotage them on exams. There is unhealthy fretting: "How should I write my autobiography for Yale?" "How many pounds should I lose before Smith loves me?" "The kids are so scared that they've lost all humor," says one pessimistic teacher. "They con us for grades." says another. "I can almost see their minds at work wondering how to please me." Said one Philadelphia girl recently: "Daddy, it will be a relief when all I have to do is work for a living."

But what eludes the adult worriers, say most teachers, is the radically different world that youngsters face. Most of them are coping--and remarkably well--with problems that grownups never knew. "When I went to school here," recalls History Teacher Schuyler Royce of Andover's Phillips Academy, "the only question was which college you would take your white shoes to. When I got out in 1941, all I needed was a knit tie, a button-down shirt and Daddy's money to get into any college I wanted. These boys know they can't write their own ticket. They're so much more aware."

The awareness spans not only college competition but also a complex world of Africans, astronauts, Russians, rockets, Berlin and The Bomb. Choices begin earlier than ever, demand more decision than ever--and produce "wiser" students than ever. Their seeming "overcautiousness" is mostly a matter of thinking twice about everything in a time that demands it. "Modern American young people seem to walk on eggs more than any other generation in the 20th century," writes Sociologist Reuel Denney of the University of Chicago in Daedalus. "Their talent for the 'delayed reflex' may prove to be one of our main resources in the coming culture and politics of the nuclear age."

Hard Work Is Easy. The high school student in 1961 has a new view of his possibilities. At Philadelphia's Central High School, for example, students now carry five major subjects instead of four. "They can do much more than we thought," says one teacher. At suburban Chicago's New Trier Township High School, 57% of the students took extra courses last summer, mostly for the fun of it. At Detroit's Cass Technical High School, A-average Senior Harley Shaiken, 16, spends 37 1/2 hours a week in classes that range from qualitative analysis to enriched English literature. He works on the school paper, studies three hours every night, never watches TV and does not own a car. Why does Harley work so hard? "Not to get the grade out of a class," says he. "It's what I'll be able to get with an education."

The new students' wide-ranging curiosity awes English Teacher Anne Wallach of San Francisco's Lowell High School: "They read everything from Greek classics to modern political novels. On their own, they tackle Dostoevsky, Camus, Thomas Wolfe and Elizabeth Bowen; on picnics they talk about everything from world politics to advanced physics. These students are definitely not dull. They're wonderfully vigorous."

Paradoxically, all the hard work is easier than it looks. "The students are no brighter," says veteran French Teacher Lawrence Garrett of Denver's East High School. "They have the benefit of better guidance, testing and prodding." New "discovery" approaches in math, physics and chemistry, for example, make learning more alluring. TV has apparently boosted vocabularies and widened horizons. Cheap paperbacks have put poets and philosophers in any hip pocket. Along with language labs that make drill palatable go new courses in the techniques of studying. "They have learned how to read rapidly, how to summarize, and how to take notes," says one teacher. "Now, when confronted with a problem, they don't say, 'How do you do it?' They know."

Grow Up, Grownups. The notion that all this leaves no energy for fun is far from accurate. The more adolescents are challenged, the more energy they seem to generate. From coast to coast, high school students are still flocking to dances, football games, beaches, ski slopes and mountain trails. "They have the same old biological urges," says one teacher, "and they express them in the same old ways."

If anyone is tensed up, it seems to be their parents. On the one hand, parents are appalled at the amount of school-work--forgetting that 1961 youngsters are up to it. On the other hand, parents are egregiously hopped up about college--often because they fear losing face with other parents. Says one Alameda, Calif., teacher: "We hear things like this: 'I don't care what my child learns as long as he gets a B average and gets into Cal.' " This sort of thing creates more tension in students than anything else. A lot of teachers wish a lot of grownups would grow up to their children.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.