National Public Radio By Mary Alvord: Article Analysis

I am using an article from the National Public Radio to explain the conflict perspective of education. As the article suggests, an increase number of American teens are feeling stressed in school, and not many are managing it well. This can easily be seen because of academic tracking and the hidden curriculum, We can easily see the hidden curriculum and academic tracking as the article suggest. American teens are expected to know the standards of behavior that are deemed proper by society. What that currently is, is that society believes teens should go straight to college after finishing high school to contribute their worth to society, because of this, teens gets stressed having to deal with college prep and high school work. As the author

When teens follow too much to society norms of finish high school and go to college, they build up too much stress that can eventually backfire, as a clinical psychologist Mary Alvord mentions, “’A little stress is a good thing, it can motivate students to be organized. But too much stress can backfire.’” Example of this is teens coping to deal with drugs like marijuana to reduce the stress. It is now common to see teens today doing drugs because of all the stress they are facing in High School with the academic tracking and societal expectations. The article also mentions that 24% of the teen parents are saying homework was a leading cause of stress for their teens. To meet what society deems proper, most students believe that it is unacceptable to take the easy way out. Afraid of being called a slacker by their peers, and be labeled as part of the “dumb easy way out students”. They have to take advance courses to prove themselves to their peers and their parents, having to do way more work they they can handle. As the article mentions, a 16-year old sophomore, Colleen Frainey of Tualatin, Ore, had taken all advance courses. She mentions that, “I didn’t feel good, and when I didn’t feel good I felt like I