The Self-Driven Child
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The Self-Driven Child
Grade A+ Deception: student journalists on the academic pressure to cheat
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What happens when academic pressure becomes so intense that cheating starts to feel normal? In this conversation, I’m joined by student journalists Ethan Chan and Meryem Orazova from Palo Alto High School’s award-winning newspaper, The Campanile. Their investigation into academic dishonesty uncovered some troubling realities about student stress, achievement culture, and the growing pressure surrounding college admissions.
Together, we explore why so many students feel compelled to take shortcuts, how external pressures can crowd out intrinsic motivation, and what parents and educators can do to help young people pursue success without sacrificing their well-being. If you care about raising resilient, self-driven kids, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.
Episode Highlights
[1:41] - Meet student journalists Ethan Chan and Meryem Orazova
[3:25] - Inside Palo Alto’s high-pressure academic culture
[4:25] - When students first begin feeling college admissions pressure
[7:00] - How achievement culture shapes student identity and self-worth
[10:11] - The surprising findings from A Grade A+ Deception
[11:14] - Why cheating has become normalized for many students
[14:08] - The role of AI, answer sharing, and academic shortcuts
[17:50] - How external rewards can undermine the joy of learning
[20:46] - Choosing classes for genuine interest versus college applications
[23:50] - Why the “best” college may not be the right college
[26:58] - The hidden emotional costs of constant comparison
[29:28] - What students wish parents understood about academic stress
[33:56] - Why cheating ultimately hurts learning and confidence
[37:14] - Building school cultures that support integrity and well-being
[41:06] - Practical ways adults can reduce pressure and support growth
[43:46] - Final reflections on success, motivation, and thriving
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If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a tutoring or college plan together, reach out to Ned's company, PrepMatters at www.prepmatters.com
Hey folks, Ned here. Like me, you want your kids, your students, honestly all the young people you know to thrive, and you know how much you can help. But like me, you probably also recognize that you fall short more than you like to. In part, because we tend to revert to old ways. We hear a great suggestion, or learn a new approach, but to easily fall back into the same darn things that didn't work before. It isn't easy, which is why I'm really excited to share with you that Bill and I have a new book out this spring, The Seven Principles for Raising a Self-Driven Child, a workbook. Our goal is to make it easier to put into practice more of the advice from our first two books, The Self-Driven Child and What Do You Say, full of reflections and exercises to do yourself with your partner and with your children, we want to help make The Self-Driven Child way your way, so that you can more often than not be as effective as you want to be with your kids in ways that we know you want to be. If you get a chance, order a copy. Bill and I, and your kids would be grateful.
Meryem Orazova:I think it just, everybody kind of succumbs to the pressure of wanting to get a good grade on X test or class, and as a result, when you see other people doing it, becomes more. it becomes more like something acceptable, yeah. In general, I think that's really it's.. it shouldn't be like that at all. But it's sad to see that, like, so many kids, like, instead of like actually learning the content or actually talking to the teacher, if you're actually struggling, they kind of resort to taking a lot of shortcuts, which I just don't think is good for us in the long run.
Ned Johnson:Welcome to the Self Triven Child podcast. I'm your host, Ned Johnson, and co-author with Dr. William Stickstride of
the books The Self-Driven Child:The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives. And what do you say? How to talk with kids to build motivation, stress tolerance, and a happy home. A grade A plus deception is the name of an article co-authored last year by student journalists Ethan Chen, Gavin Lin, and Mariam Oryzova for the school newspaper The Campanel at Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto, California. In their article, these young and talented reporters cite a february 19, 2025 Campanile opt-in Schoolology survey, in which 65% of students said they have cheated, and 81% have said they've seen others cheat by using artificial intelligence, copying answers, or sharing answers before a test. Does the excessive pressure to excel make kids feel that they have no choice but to cheat. Does the weight of expectations around college admissions strip students of their intrinsic motivation to learn for learning's sake? In today's podcast, we explore these questions and how parents, educators, and students can co-create a learning environment in which cheating is not the norm. I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the Self Driven Child podcast. Well, Ethan and Miriam, thank you for joining me in this conversation. I am a big fan of journalists, I'm a big fan of students, so you can obviously imagine I'm a big fan of student journalists. So, tell me a little bit about your school, for people who don't know this, I'd love to hear about your school and about school paper.
Meryem Orazova:Yeah, of course, I can go first more in depth on, like, Pali itself, Paulo High School. I think the way I describe Pally is that it's a pretty high-achieving public school, obviously in Palo Alto, which is in itself pretty, like, you're, I think, as students, we're surrounded by Stanford, by all the tech wealth people who had like very advanced degrees, and also like a lot of high expectations that you like result in like a student body that's very genuinely very talented and very curious as well, but there's also this pressure that at least I felt like it was a little bit hard to escape. There's a lot of kids who have been coached for like college admissions since middle school, and even sometimes earlier than that, but I think it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's that's definitely very much prominent in the community, those values, but it creates an environment in which, like, it feels like you're kind of tied to your worth by how you're viewed by colleges, or like, where you get into.
Ned Johnson:You mentioned that you feel that pressure. When did you first become aware of a sense of that pressure? I mean, do you think it's in the water from, you know, the earliest possible years?
Meryem Orazova:That's a hard question. I, yeah, I think I've always been aware of the fact that college is an important end goal. I mean, my parents personally, like, they didn't put a lot of pressure on me at all, but I have been seeing, like, after-school activities, or I remember in middle school someone was like, "Oh, yeah, I have a college counselor meeting, and I was like, "Oh, what? And I didn't even like know that we had to start the.. I didn't get a college counselor until. Senior year, and so hearing that as a middle schooler is definitely shocking, but I don't know, I think it's definitely up in the air, and I've talked to my parents a lot about this, but they said that people, like, have been talking about it for a while, so yeah,
Ethan Chan:I think for me it's started in freshman year, like right from the beginning, but it definitely progressed, and the intensity definitely increases as you go through sophomore and junior year. Do you think that intensity is the academic rigor, the academic, the perceived pressure, or equal parts? Definitely a mix of both, like beyond just the academic rigor, there's obviously a lot of other things that people do outside of school, and these are things that your peers are doing, so the pressure is not directly like they're pressuring you to do things, but that you feel like you should be doing more and more as you see your peers doing more and more.
Ned Johnson:I was talking with folks at, uh, so I'm here in Bethesda, Maryland, which at least a handful of years ago was the most educated place in America when you looked at the percentage of people with college degrees and graduate degrees, so not the not the same culture of courses Palo Alto, but also a lot of academic pressure because of that of people who I think parents who have built successful lives and tie that to their academic success, and so wanting their kids to have successful lives, tie that to academic success, so that culture gets recreated, and so I was talking with folks at a local, really nice local school here, public school, and this one girl said, for my friends and me, we think about every moment of our day through the lens of what would a college admissions person think about how we spend our time. Does that ring true for you? I mean, I, you know, it's been a while since I was a high school student, so, so I don't know whether she's singular that way or whether that's what a lot of people feel once they get to high school,
Meryem Orazova:I wouldn't necessarily think of it as like, oh, I'm eating lunch, and I'm doing this club today, and I hope that my college admissions officer reads, like, is able to take that and see that on my application, but I think, like, I think to reframe it, something that I have had, like, a conversation I have had with one of my friends recently is like, I wish that a college admissions officer could come into Pali and come into our school and see what these kids are actually like, because on the note of like cheating, like if you see like the amount of like academic dishonesty or just generally things that you probably wouldn't want in a student,
Ned Johnson:maybe, maybe depends on the college or the profession. Actually, we love those skills here. I'm teasing,
Meryem Orazova:yeah, but I mean, I think in terms of like academic integrity and like dishonesty, we were talking about how like I wish an admissions officer could actually come in and see us and see what we are like on a daily basis. I think a lot of people, I know some people like don't make an effort to talk to others. Some people completely disrespect teachers, and I think maybe in that sense, but I don't think of it as a way it's like, oh, every single moment in my day is watched.
Ned Johnson:Well, the reason I was asking is that, you know, Ethan, mate, you're making the point that it's not just what we're doing in class, but how we're spending time outside of school, and maybe I, big air quotes, should be, and so I wonder, you know, you know, gosh, I really want to just spend time and run off, and you know, have a good lunch with, with, with Ethan, but gosh, maybe I really should be fill in the blank, studying harder for this, or you know, I shouldn't be, shouldn't be wasting time on things, and for some students, a student was in one of the books we co-wrote said that she, anytime she has downtime, she worries, she feels anxious because she feels like she should be doing something productive with that time, and I don't, you know, and that may be, again, particular to her, but I, if you have that over that, that looming sense that I should be spending my time someplace else, but perhaps if you have parents who aren't pressuring you, they've created that space for you to be able to breathe and reflect and write cool articles and all that stuff.
Ethan Chan:I actually think I struggled with that a lot, but my parents aren't like super pressuring, like they're actually pretty relaxed about it.
Ned Johnson:You guys chose well when it came to parents. Yeah,
Ethan Chan:yeah, it's more of me just like being a bad procrastinator, and then that creates a lot of anxiety, like feeling that I should be like being productive, which is counterproductive. Actually, it makes it harder to do, or
Ned Johnson:can I? Can I ask you, do typically people will procrastinate from a brain state. People procrastinate for
one of two reasons:either they're ADHD or ADHD-adjacent, and so they wait for the building pressure to jack up the neurotransmitters in the brain, and they finally feel like doing the thing they all along know they should be doing. In, but they just didn't feel like it yet, or there's anxiety about doing that thing, and so you put it off and put it off and put it up, because you just don't want to face it until you absolutely have to face it. Out of curiosity, does either those sound like you?
Ethan Chan:Probably more the anxiety aspect.
Ned Johnson:Okay, yeah, that's a tricky one, because then if you.. I'm just trying to imagine this narrative, you're putting things off because you just really don't want to deal with them, but then eventually have to, but you're then probably doing things later at night, so now you're more tired and you're a little bit more frazzled, which makes your anxiety a little bit higher, and then because you're doing things late at night, you get less sleep, which makes things sleep deprivation is a cause and a symptom of anxiety, so you get on a loop. There is that kind of where you are. Okay, we'll talk off the clock, we'll figure this one out for you. So talk to me, tell me a little bit about some of the things that you found in your reporting that you shared with with readers around around academic dishonesty of health. If I remember correctly, it was something like 65% of students, and this was written December of last year, 65% of students admitted to cheating, 81% said they had observed other students cheating on the test.
Ethan Chan:Yeah,
Ned Johnson:when you did that survey, did that surprise you at all, or did that ring true?
Ethan Chan:No, I think we expected that numbers would be pretty high.
Meryem Orazova:There is a lot of cheating that we.. I think what surprised me is that earlier on freshman year and sophomore year cheating was very frowned upon, or it wasn't as common, but I think the later you get into high school, the more acceptable becomes
Ned Johnson:to me about that. Why do you think that
Meryem Orazova:is? I think it just everybody kind of succumbs to the pressure of wanting to get a good grade on X test or class, and as a result, when you see other people doing it, becomes more, it becomes more like something
Ned Johnson:acceptable. Yeah,
Meryem Orazova:in general, I think that's really it shouldn't be like that at all, but it's sad to see that, like, so many kids, like, instead of, like, actually learning the content, or actually talking to the teacher, if you're actually struggling, they kind of resort to taking a lot of shortcuts, which I just don't think is good for us in the long run.
Ned Johnson:Oh, definitely, definitely not. You know, I was reading up a little bit on psychological literature about what leads people, what leads people to cheat, you know, high school, college, academically, you know, and sometimes it's like they may not understand what is considered cheating, right? So you cross a line with using AI that you thought was acceptable, and it's, and it's in fact not, but other things that that running kind of right down the line, you know, are peers, so you know pressure from appearing to compete with them, or watching what other people doing perceive risks, like, well, gosh, if I, you know, if I don't think I'll get caught, I forget it was in your article, another one that only 7% of students got caught, and so if you think, well, the odds of my getting caught are low, so I take that risk all the time, I don't till 50 in the 30 zone, because I think then it's a really high likelihood that all that I'll end up in a place that I don't want to be, but you know, in addition to literature around cheating also talks about pressure, both student pressure, school pressure, parent pressure, and the culture, and so that's the thing that was really struck me a little bit that it feels almost like that you guys have pointed up a culture within your school, and I think, frankly, it's an exemplar of other highly academic, highly high achieving schools, where kids both feel that they need.. if I heard you correctly, Miriam, kind of.. we, I need to do this because I need to get these grades, and if I can do it without cheating, I'll do it, but if I need those grades, then I'll cross a line, and there's a culture of doing this, so you know, maybe I'm a dope to take a lower grade, honestly. If everybody else is getting higher grades by taking shortcuts, is that.. do I kind of encapsulate that correctly?
Meryem Orazova:Yeah, I think that summed it up really, really well.
Ned Johnson:And it was interesting. You may or may not know, there was an article in the Inside Higher Ed about kind of a massive cheating at Pali. This was written in 2022 so this would have been before you guys became the student journalist that you are a fighting toxic comparison driven culture. I'll put for folks listening, we'll put this in, put this in the notes, and so it's really interesting. I mean, culture begets culture, right? So, if you see, if you're a freshman, seeing everyone else do this, then you probably follow along, right? To the degree that it seems as though there's a culture of needing to be academically dishonest to achieve at a higher possible level, it appears that that's kind of the culture of Pali and places like that. What do you think the causes are for that culture? Is it just this is what everyone else does, or are is it pressure students put on themselves, or they feel from their peers, or they feel from the school, or they feel from their parents? What would you put your finger on?
Ethan Chan:I think it's three different sources that we talked about, so there's from parents,
Ned Johnson:okay,
Ethan Chan:peers. Like comparison, and then from students themselves,
Ned Johnson:you pressure yourselves.
Ethan Chan:Yeah, so seeing other people cheat, and then feeling it's okay to cheat, that's definitely one aspect of it. But I think there is a lot of comparison, and feeling like you don't want to fall behind your peers, because in college admissions they really prioritize, like standing out from your peers. It's curious that the
Ned Johnson:teenage perspective, in some ways, if you think about it, is both to fit in and to stand out. That's a needle to, that's a hard needle to thread. Yeah, but so Ethan, back to you. So, you feel like in the college admissions that you have this persistent message from college that you have to stand out compared to your peers. Yeah, definitely. And then you're wondering, and I'm thinking, well, then if everybody else is getting A's, how can I stand out? And so, in some ways, then you're not. I'm making this up, I'm putting words in your mouth a little bit. I can't stand out in terms of excellence if everyone else is getting A's. I can only stand out by being short of what everyone else is doing,
Ethan Chan:yeah. I guess
Ned Johnson:that's all hard, right? I mean, is everyone is everyone getting A's at Pali?
Meryem Orazova:No,
Ethan Chan:no, but I mean, there's always going to be someone who has like a higher GPA than you or something, so
Ned Johnson:that's true. Yeah, and when
Ethan Chan:people take more advanced classes, then, like, for example, they added, like, MVC multivariable calculus as, like, a during Valley school hours. I mean, this is - I'm talking from personal experience with this one too, because I was like deciding whether or not to sign up for that, and initially I felt like I didn't want to, because I felt like I didn't really need to take that class, like personally for myself, but I asked like a lot of my friends, and basically all of them were signing up for it, so that definitely made me feel like I like should sign up for it, and so that's definitely like a challenging aspect of that, that you might not actually want to take, but that you feel like you have to have
Ned Johnson:to take that's like the joke about the bear, the you don't need to be faster than the bear, but you don't want to be slower than all the other people running from the bear. So, is there.. if I, if you take your example, there, Ethan, was that really all my other classmates or friends who are taking it? So I wanted to take it because I wanted to be with them, or I was afraid that if I didn't take it, then somehow some opportunities would be doors would be closed for me, other people would take your spot, for lack of a better word.
Ethan Chan:Yeah, it's definitely going back to like the comparison, and not yet not wanting to like fall behind other people, so it's fear driven, not want driven. Yeah, but you, Miriam? Is that your experience when you think about a lot of things academically that you're driven by fear of falling short versus desire to achieve at high level?
Meryem Orazova:Yeah, I mean, I've definitely experienced that on my own. I mean, when I comparison is a bad thing, but it's like natural at this point, I think to answer your question, about like, where I think this, I don't know, I think why I think people resort to cheating and kind of trying to cut corners. I think something that I've noticed is that, in general, there's more of a collapse or like intrinsic motivation itself is kind of not there as much. Think something I've seen is like when everything is graded or when people are leveraging things for their college applications, it's really hard to like stay curious for your own self. There's like in general a lot of kids in my classes have always asked like oh will this be on the test, or like even after the test they'll be like, oh, what, what concepts did you see on that test I think that's not necessarily because they're really lazy or anything, I think it's more so because they kind of want to like optimize spending their time, so rather learning to learn and like learning to actually understand the content, I think that like academic dishonesty that we see is in part what happens like when we see that external motivation kind of kicking in and not really doing it to satisfy yourself.
Ned Johnson:So, if I can repeat that back to you, when there's all this pressure to perform, it makes people be extrinsically motivated, which undermines their intrinsic motivation and also leads them to cheat, oh, and it wipes out intellectual curiosity.
Meryem Orazova:Yes,
Ned Johnson:other than that, crates are fantastic.
Meryem Orazova:Yeah, it's interesting because we, as journals, Ethan is now an incoming EIC, or I guess he's an editor in cheat. I'm done. But last year, oh
Ned Johnson:man, I'm talking to journalism royalty here. I'm so. I feel so privileged.
Meryem Orazova:As editors, we had to, or just leaders on staff. As an incoming senior, you have to read certain books about leadership. I read Drive by Daniel Pink, along with my computers, and I learned a lot from that book, because just the general way that our journalism staff at Camp Neely is structured is that the editors. Are most like the teachers of the class, and so we lead the class, and so we structure grading and everything, and so something that we really emphasized this year was like making sure that everybody on staff really was doing journalism because they were intrinsically motivated, and so we want a lot of external fact factors influencing like writers or staff writers writing, and like, how much effort they put into the class, and so seeing that application is interesting.
Ned Johnson:So, I love this. First of all, Dr. Pink's, I mean, great writer, great research, a great book. I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit. So, what is what do we need to have for intrinsic motivation, as you, as you understand it, what would help you be more intrinsically motivated
Meryem Orazova:as a student?
Ned Johnson:Yeah, or as a human.
Meryem Orazova:As a human, I think just like taking, or I guess I can talk about more so as a student, but like taking classes that actually interest me, the time to discuss with my teachers and actually understand like real world applications to the concepts that we're learning on, in terms of like what classes I'm taking, taking classes that really interest me. The people at Pally kind of fall into the trap of almost like, oh, I stack up on APs this year, I'm going to take five APs or six APs, which I completely understand, and I definitely did that myself as well, but I think when you focus on kind of these check marks and these details, you kind of often lose your own self in the long run, and like your creativity, and I don't know, I think that's like the main takeaway I had.
Ned Johnson:We write about this in our books, is the self-driven child that you're married, that your folks have that for us fostering that intrinsic motivation may be the most important thing that we can do for young people in high school, because if you're going to have a motivational style that's sustainable, it can't be carrots and sticks, because then people have to start keeping getting bigger carrots to bribe you or bigger sticks to whack you with, and there's going to be a limit to that, where intrinsic drive, this is, you then develop the brain that you carry into college, into career, into life. Part of the reason that that your school was on my radar was a writing partner, Bill Stick, sure, who's a clinical neuropsychologist. He and I visited your school in, I forget, I guess it must have been 2019 and part of it there had been several years before that there'd been a suicide cluster. You may know about this at Pally. They've been written about The Atlantic, and we reference this in our, in our reporting school, and the Educational Foundation out there was kind of to invite us out, but they were worried about that we were going to say, "Ah, these people on these whatever, and kind of give people a hard time, and of course the challenges that you guys are facing may be a little more intense where you are, but these are challenges that young people and institutions of education face across the whole country. So I love that you guys are writing so thoughtfully about these issues, because they matter not just to your population, but to kind of any one of your, any one of your age, we were interviewed. This was hilarious to me. We were interviewed in the morning by, like, if we gave a presentation to school leadership of principals and superintendents, one to kind of meet these folks, but to make sure that we were going to talk about things that felt on point. My writing partner was telling this story about an AP high school class out here, AP English class out my way, and about stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation. At the end of this conversation, the teacher rolls up, and she said, "Hear the kids all think their thinking is all that it's Yale or McDonald's when it comes to college. And so we're telling this story, and one of the educators, where you are, said, "Well, here the kids all say it's Yale or jail, and I thought, oh, that's much more clever. I love the rhyme. We finished the talk, I turned my phone on, and it turns out we were there the morning that Varsity Blues, Rick Singer, all that cheating scandal, you know about that, that it literally blew up that day, and I thought, oh my gosh, I mean, for someone in my work, this is like, it was, it was epic, I mean, horrific, but epic. So that night, when we're at Pali, and we're talking, they're five or 600 parents, or whatever, I said, your kids, your kids were so close, they're so close, Yale or jail. It turns out it's Yale and jail. Miriam Sweetheart, you'll go to Yale, I'll go to jail, we'll both get out in four years to celebrate, right? I mean, just crazy stuff. And so one thing that we worry about is that really the recipe to develop anxiety, if you thought that was a cool idea, would just be too tired and too stressed for too long, and eventually rewire your brain and waste they develop anxiety, and if you keep going, you'll eventually become depressed, right, and it's really not good, and so you know this. If kids feel this pressure that they have to cheat in order to keep their heads above water and not get eaten by the bear and be sleep deprived as well, I mean, this, this, these are pretty good indicators that it's not. Exactly, a brain-friendly environment that a lot of people are growing up in. Does that ring true to you guys?
Meryem Orazova:Yeah, for sure.
Ethan Chan:I think it is important to emphasize, though, that there's like Holly has a lot of resources in terms of like supporting students, academic.
Ned Johnson:Really good point. Yeah, and really good teachers
Ethan Chan:are for the most part also really supportive, and if you actually like go to them and seek out help, they will be very willing and happy to help you. So, I think that's definitely something that more students should learn to do, because I think it would help them out a lot if they just learn to like reach out to their teachers. It's a great point, and really appreciate you making that point, Ethan. There was one of the teachers who's in your
Ned Johnson:article who said, I assume I start from a place of respect, I assume that people are honest, I give everyone the benefit of the doubt until I'm proven otherwise, rather than starting out assuming that they're, ah, kids these days are no good. One of the teachers quoted in your article made a point something like, I start every school year assuming trust, assuming respect, assuming that all these kids, all my students, are going to do the best, do the best that they can, and I'm not looking for them, I'm not looking for, you know, cheaters until people start, until students start doing things, but really started with a place of respect, which I thought was awfully good, and a bunch of your teachers were also making the point that they understand, you know, like you were saying, Miriam, this pressure to take five APs and to get into highly selective colleges, but have the feeling that it's simply not necessary to go to a top 20 school to have in order to have a top 20 life. Do you feel like you get that message from teachers, from parents, that it's perfectly fine if you wanted to go to Stanford, but you don't have to go to Stanford to have a successful life? Do you feel like that's a message that comes through pretty well?
Ethan Chan:Personally, my parents aren't super pushy, and they definitely don't give off the message that, oh, you have to go to an Ivy League school or anything,
Ned Johnson:I love it, but
Ethan Chan:I think some students do have pressure behind, yeah,
Ned Johnson:yeah,
Ethan Chan:and that can come from both their parents, but also like their siblings who maybe are going to really good schools.
Meryem Orazova:I think there's also a lot of self pressure too. Yeah, I'd say like when you see like the past seniors, this is something that I felt when I saw all my senior friends going at all these top 20 name brand elite colleges, I definitely felt the same way, and I felt like if I didn't live up to those same expectations, and looking to the younger class, I felt like they were constantly watching me as well, I would not be nearly as successful in their eyes, and so that's definitely something I felt
Ned Johnson:that's helpful. I mean, Ethan, because Ethan, you'd mentioned a moment ago that there's pressure from parents, there's can be pressure from school, and there can be pressure the kids put on themselves. When you think about healthy messages, of it's fine to, you know, we, I wanted you to work hard, I want you to develop yourself, I want you to be academic and intellectually curious, but that doesn't have to be, you know, Tiffany College or Gucci University, right? To pick name brands, right? When you think about positive messages that are coming, you get that sounds like you're getting them great, great way from your parents. Do you feel like you're getting those messages from teachers and the administration at your school, and what about kids as well? Where do you get positive messages? I
Ethan Chan:think the teachers and administration at our school do try and push that message of being more like, oh, you should go to a college that fits you and not one that's necessarily like really prestigious. Yeah, I mean, I also wrote another spotlight this year about college, and everybody that we talked to basically said, "Oh, it's actually like people who are already in college and have already graduated high school, and they were like, "Oh, it doesn't really matter that much, and people are like stressing over it too much in high school, and it really is about like being having the right fit, and like later on in life you'll realize that it doesn't actually matter that much, but so I think that's a really good message, but it is really hard, like when you're in the moment, when you're high school, even though you might like know that it's still really difficult to get out of that mindset, because it's
Ned Johnson:like it
Ethan Chan:just surrounds you.
Ned Johnson:What do you think would help anyone in your, you know, in your age feel that it's safe to worry less about college?
Ethan Chan:That's a really difficult, yeah, yeah, no, it is.
Ned Johnson:It's a different, it is a difficult question. I mean, and part of the reason I'm, I'm interested is there are a lot of people my age who have all kinds of ideas about what we should be doing to, you know, fix things or fix kids or fix whatever, and it seems to me that you all, who are living this, you, you have a, you have a perspective that's unique, and to your point, Ethan, even two years from now, the perspective you have two years from now will be different from ideally. Give me a hard time, ideally will be different than the one that's maybe fear-based, one that you feel now, and so I guess the because, because I, what I was wanted to ask a moment ago, when teachers and administration are saying it doesn't really matter where you go to college that much, it's really the fit I imagine that you imagined, yeah, yeah, sure, Ned, yeah, but right, and that may be it, may be a hard message to swallow. It may be a hard one to feel that it's safe to believe. And I'm just wondering, if you, if you guys have ever given thoughts on if someone my age was talking to a bunch of your people your age, how could we help you feel that it's safe not to worry as much as you do? I mean, we, because we, you, I still want you to work hard, you still want you to work hard, but to not be quite as worried about that it's Yale or jail?
Meryem Orazova:I think as a senior who has gone through the college admissions process, if you told me a year ago, I remember like one of my friends telling me, like, it's all gonna work out, don't worry, everything out, and by the end of your senior year, you'll realize, like, it doesn't really matter where you go, and I didn't believe that at all. I had a lot of, I'd say, I had a roller coaster of emotions
Ned Johnson:throughout
Meryem Orazova:our admissions process, and not even like completing the applications themselves, but also just like receiving the decisions. It's, it's pretty emotionally touring, like when you don't necessarily get the outcome that you might have hoped for, but then at the same time I know it's just hard to navigate, it's hard to balance, but something I would say is like I think it's important for people like trusted adults
Ned Johnson:to
Meryem Orazova:be telling that like or like reassuring them that college isn't necessarily the most important thing that's going to determine your life, I think when you see somebody who you really trust and who you really admire, someone who you really look up to, and they tell you their personal experiences, or they tell you what they've seen in their all their years of teaching or advising, that's something that you can really like understand and really trust, and I think that positive messaging from those trusted adults, so for me that was my journalism advisor slash my teacher advisor at Pali, and also like one of the Pali college counselors as well. That messaging, I think, should be more emphasized, I guess, for students.
Ned Johnson:Let me ask you this question. This is the leading question, of course, but do you have favorite teachers at your school? I'm assuming that's a yes, right? I'm not asking you to name them, but you have people whose judgment you really trust, right? Not just their knowledge, but their wisdom, their wisdom. Yeah, yeah. Out of curiosity, do you happen to know where all of your teachers went to college? Do you?
Meryem Orazova:Yeah,
Ned Johnson:interesting. It's me, again, I'm a million years old, but when I was in high school, I had zero idea. I mean, I assume that they actually had gone to college because they were at the front of the room with in charge, but I never, never had any idea, you know, and I'm pointedly not going to ask you where you're going to college, Miriam, because in some ways I don't really care, you know, you haven't asked me yet where I've gone to college, or if I've gone to college, I did go to college, I graduated, we'll leave it there. You know, the point I'm trying to emphasize is the one that you were making is that right now college feels like the most important outcome of, I mean, this is what you've suffered for for four years of high school, this is what you have done with your adolescence, and I would say, and I'll stand on the side of the road out here with it, with the sandwich board on, that the most important outcome of high school is not the college you get into, but it's figuring out who you are, what do you like, how do you want to contribute to the world that needs to be filled, how do you develop the brain, the motivation, the stress tolerance to be able to go off and do things that matter to you, that matter to the world, and you can absolutely do that by going to a college that accepts 3% of people, and you can absolutely do that by going to college that accepts 83% of people, because in many ways, I mean, you guys, whatever you do for college, you've already won, I mean, in that you're bright and you're curious, right? Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the genes, right? You know, right, you know, and one of the things that came through in the article, you know, I, whoever can, a kudos to you for getting all those teachers to chime in, but one of the real concerns that they had about cheating, at least the through line that I thought I saw there, is how it undermines learning that everything was about how do I get the A and not how do I get better as a writer, I mean, you guys may be getting better as writers. I don't know from what you're doing with the school paper than what you did for the what you did for the English class. Not that you don't have wonderful English teachers, but there you are in some ways right into the audience of the teacher, trying to figure out what does he want, what does she want, and this is a real challenge in school generally. What do I have to do to get that A? And for many people, once they figure out what they need to get an A, they stop, and they're done, right? But if you're writing an article, chances are you have a challenge of when it, when is it good enough, because you'll keep wanting to make it better and better and better. The same way, if you were pulling pots, or painting, or you know, working on your, your, your jump shot, or something like that, it's never. Never finished, it's never finished right, but with school and grades, as soon as you've got the A, you to your point, Miriam, you check that box and you move on. So I really did appreciate hearing that from teachers that they feel they feel or spouse that the purpose of school is learning and developing skills and developing people. It's just it seems that the message that so many people your age feel is yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I need to get an A. If you are in charge of running Poly High School, can you think of a couple things that you might change, not to get rid of, you know, all competition, because you know a lot of people will actually rise to competition, but to help you guys feel that you would be doing things because you're intrinsically motivated, but because it mattered to you rather than because it mattered to someone else, can you think of a thing or two that would be helpful? Have you ever thought about that, or you just like you just lived this system and you're like, I've just got to get through it, man.
Meryem Orazova:I think I definitely have lived through the system, but I think if I could change one thing, or if I could, like, try to get the student body to believe something, I think I'd want them to genuinely believe it to be true that there are many very good paths that value you more as a person and aren't like determined by where you land at when you're 18 years old, and I think there is a lot of efforts towards doing that, we have a lot of like guest speakers coming in, but I think it's, it's hard for the school to change itself without the culture. It's, it's not necessarily all within the school, and so I think it's
Ned Johnson:true. It's a really good point. Yeah,
Ethan Chan:yeah, I think it definitely extends beyond the school and into like not only just like families, but also the general environment of here, of where we live, in like Palo Alto, right next to Stanford, yeah, the heart of the Silicon Valley. And so I think that part is definitely really hard to change, but yeah,
Ned Johnson:well, it's interesting, because you know, we've Bill and I've lectured in, I don't know, 2630 states, or whatever, and I am quite aware of really kind of what a remarkable place Palo Alto is, and the school that you attend, and the people who live there. What is curious to me is, I, the words that you have described your experience, I hear them at every school I speak with, you know, places that I think of as just like flyover states, and they talk about the academic pressure, and on and on, and literally the exact same thing you're describing, with it's just a different university, instead of Stanford, it's, you know, the Ohio State, and it's, and yeah, and smile, like Ohio State, yep, same thing, same thing, yeah, and so your, your point is a really good one, that is not simply the culture of that school, of your school, I should say, these are really big macro forces, and so it is. It is, it's hard to fix everything in the world outside of your world, even though these things come in a lot. Does the administration there work with students on trying to tackle some of these issues? Culture, I mean, are things done both bottom, both ground, bottom up and top down? Are there young people trying to fix the culture, in addition to student journalists? Sounds like if they are, they aren't obvious to you. Are there? Are there's like other student organizations who are saying, hey, we're trying to make Pally a healthier place to grow up as a kid.
Meryem Orazova:Yeah, I think so. I mean, we have our associated student body. There are a lot of events that are stress.. let's say, like, I forgot what stress
Ned Johnson:busters, kind of stuff.
Meryem Orazova:Yeah, stress busters, even what is it called, like anti-stress week or something. We have a bunch of different, like, organization,
Ned Johnson:or you guys have challenge success there too, which is a right out of Palo Alto, which is a great organization.
Meryem Orazova:Oh, right, I think in terms of like what students are doing, something that I like appreciated was we have like our broadcasting publication called in focus and they always think like before finals like they're always like oh what are some tips to destress before your finals like drink tea hang out with friends but I think there is a lot of work done by students for sure in terms of like admin when I think about, and I think of like principals and vice principals, all the adults in our school, I think they are actively making Pali like more, more of a community that you feel like you can roll up on, but yeah,
Ned Johnson:well, I'll leave with this, and this, because this sounds like this is news to you, or perhaps a little bit of ancient history, and I'll include this article in the, in the notes, and send this over to you guys, but you guys used to have Campanile used to publish the post Pali plans map, and I guess you got rid of this in 2022 and the quote from your predecessor editor back then, whoever this was, said, quote,"We believe the burden of improving Palley's environment falls on the students. If we don't shift how we talk and think about college, the culture will never improve. This is the reason we decided not to publish the map this year. And I thought that was really well said. Now, I would quibble with that a little bit, because I don't - I don't think it's only on you as students, because you didn't create the world that you're growing up in. Right, you know, I think I think we adults, there's some responsibility there, but I thought, wow, what a cool, thoughtful, brave thing for those editors to do, and it was the most anticipated thing that apparently the high school paper would write, and they said, we're not doing it because it's injurious to the to the thriving, to the well-being, the mental health, the happiness, you know, of our fellow classmates, and I thought that is really cool. Yeah, so sure. Kudos on you, kudos on your school paper. Any last thoughts you would want? You know, you've got an audience of, you know, couple 1000 parents and educators who occasionally listen to my podcast, and probably more so, because it's you guys, and it's not just me, anything you would, you would want folks to know. It sounds like you got well, you have chosen well again with parents who are supporting you but not pressuring you, which is well done. And please offer my thanks to them. But any final thoughts that you would want other adults to know about how we can be helpful or changes that we can make to help you guys not just do well but be well.
Ethan Chan:I think one thing we talked about this earlier, a bit, but emphasizing that there are a lot of different paths, because definitely for me, like before high school, I only saw it as like a linear path, kind of how like calculus is seen as the pinnacle of math, and it's just like a linear progression.
Ned Johnson:Yeah,
Ethan Chan:sort of like high school going straight into college being the same thing, and it's like your goal is to get into as prestigious of a college as possible. And I had never really heard of the idea that, oh, there's like a lot of different paths you can take, and you can be successful like at no matter what college you go to, so I definitely think like pushing that message and educating students about it earlier on. Choose
Ned Johnson:your own adventure, right? Yeah, I love that. Ethan Miriam,
Meryem Orazova:I think that I would want to send as a message is that the students that I often know who have, like, a really a big sense of like what they want to do in life and what they actually care about. It seems like to me that they also have adults in their lives who have modeled how to handle failure more gracefully, and having something outside of school, whether that's like in like art, a sport or just like a community that can give them an actual identity that doesn't really depend on they want to, and so I think if you asked me about how we can change the culture, as students were still young, we don't really know how to navigate these things in terms of what adults can do, I think it's just being there for students and showing that the college that you go to, or the GPA you get in high school, is an end game.
Ned Johnson:I love it. I love it. Yeah, the Plan B, the Plan B thinking is really significant. There's a.. there's a great researcher who said the single.. if you think about your mental health week or Anti-Stress Week, having a Plan B may be the single most helpful way to lower stress, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to go to an A-plus school of Stanford, or whatever happens to be ideally without a plus deception to go back to your article, but there are many, many, many A lives that are built through Plan B's, since you guys are in the Silicon Valley Bay Area, I think out in your corner of the world they call that the pivot, and we can do that in lives, not just in technology. Well, Ethan Mariam, thank you so much for thank you for making time for me, and for audience, and most of all, for the work that you have done as student and are doing as student journalists. Golly, people my age need more to hear from people your age, so thank you for putting your thoughts on paper and putting those words out into the world. I really appreciate it.
Meryem Orazova:Yes, thank you so much for having us.
Ned Johnson:Some takeaways in the words of my student gets, is it too easy to take the easier path? Yeah, it's sad to see that so many kids, instead of actually learning the content or actually talking to the teacher, if they're struggling, they kind of resort to taking a lot of shortcuts, which I don't think is good for us in the long run. Does our system erode any intrinsic motivation that students may feel? I think it's something I've seen that is when everything is graded, or when people are leveraging things for the college applications, it's really hard to stay curious for your own self, and rather than learning to learn and learning to actually understand the content, I think that the academic dishonesty that we see is in part what happens when we see that external motivation kind of kicking in and not really doing the work of learning to satisfy yourself, I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the Self Driven Child podcast. Hey folks, over the past 25 years, I've talked to countless parents of high school age students who care deeply about their kids' education and how they deal with stress and the pressure to succeed. It can help parents to. Work with a team they trust won't just pile on more pressure to achieve better scores and grades. That's why I founded Prep Matters in 1997 to create a different kind of experience for test preparation and academic tutoring. This podcast and my books with my friend Bill Stick Street reflect our company philosophy and approach to helping students. If you have a high school age student, and would like to talk about putting a plan together. Please get in touch with us. Visit our website at Prep matters.com or while your kids may only text, you might want to actually talk with a person. If so, you can reach us at 301-951-0350