Episode 19- The Achievement Culture Cure with Dr. Stuart Slavin Artwork

Experience Matters with Steve Shapiro

If you ask someone about the most powerful learning experience of their youth, few people will mention a lecture, a textbook reading, or a test. Nearly all will identify an EXPERIENCE; that is because experiential learning is the most profound and lasting form of learning. So if experience matters, how do we offer it to students in our schools? This podcast invites folks to share the learning experience that most deeply impacted their lives, and each episode includes provocations about how we can bring those types of experiences into the mainstream of American schools. Experience Matters is about harnessing the power of experiential learning to transform public education

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Experience Matters with Steve Shapiro

Episode 19- The Achievement Culture Cure with Dr. Stuart Slavin

January 29, 2023 • Steve Shapiro

Episode 19: 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 Achievement culture and racism both have institutional factors

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: The Uncomfortable Truth About School

Steve’s conversation with Emmy Huefner about her encouneters 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.