The Achievement Culture Cure with Dr. Stuart Slavin
When Dr. Stuart Slavin received disturbing data about the dismal mental health of students at St. Louis University School of Medicine, he broke into action. The changes that Dr. Slavin and his faculty made transformed the mental health of their students…AND improved their learning outcomes! This is a MUST LISTEN episode.
We cover a lot of territory, including:
0:54 Great news and a warning
4:29 Stuart in denial
6:12 Stuart confronts the dismal truth with a heroic response
8:20 Identifying the 3 main stressors and attacking them
9:50 Understanding the crisis as an environmental context issue
11:25 Stuart makes specific teaching and learning changes
13:09 Wait this is insane! The Yerkes-Dodson Curve
14:37 Creating space for powerful self-directed learning experiences
16:53 Cutting back content to focus on the essentials
18:26 Undoing problematic mindsets through cognitive restructuring
22:14 Surprising survey results on sleep and study time
22:51 Why wellness programs often backfire
23:51 STUNNING improvements in mental health and learning
26:25 High school might be harder than med school
28:15 Steve surprises Stuart with a new perspective on his work
29:41 The mistake high schools make when considering mental health
30:40 Comparing achievement culture and racism in terms of institutional causes
32:35 The simple first step high schools can take
34:25 Where to focus: well-being or satisfaction?
37:30 A new learning value in a rapidly changing world
38:42 What about teachers’ mental health?
41:24 Stuart’s passionate plea to educators and parents- WE CAN DO THIS!
Dr. Slavin’s 2014 article in the journal Academic Medicine: Medical Student Mental Health 3.0: Improving Student Wellness Through Curricular Changes.
Dr. Slavin’s 2019 Journal of Academic Medicine article: Reflections on a Decade Leading a Medical Student Well-Being Initiative
Steve’s blog post about impermanent learning
Steve’s conversation with Emmy Huefner about her experiences with achievement culture stress as a student.
Steve’s conversation with Dr. William Stixrud about the impact chronic achievement culture stress has on the adolescent brain.
About Experience Matters
Experience Matters with Steve Shapiro invites guests to reflect on the most profound learning experiences of their youth and to consider how we can reform American schools. Each episode provides clues about how parents and educators alike can engage young people in powerful, sometimes transformational experiential learning. Education can take many forms, but whatever form it takes- experience matters.