Rigor Without Anxiety
Do have to choose between a high quality academic education and your child’s sanity?
The American education system has not shown any significant improvement in academic outcomes over the last few decades, but more and more of our children are suffering from anxiety. What has changed is an increase in working hours outside of school, taxing our children’s mental and psychological energy. In fact, the rate of clinical anxiety among children has been increasing steadily for three decades. In Psychology Today, Peter Grey, Ph.D, reports that “by at least some estimates, five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago.”
““More work does not mean better work; children crave intellectual stimulation, but find themselves overwhelmed by long lists of relatively boring tasks.””
Students are spending countless hours doing homework and schoolwork that is burdensome, but not stimulating or challenging. More work does not mean better work; children crave intellectual stimulation, but find themselves overwhelmed by long lists of relatively boring tasks.
At Vine, we believe that children are best able to learn in a comfortable, relaxed state of mind. Our intentionally low-stress, homework-free structure supports a rigorous education beneficial to each of our students. We seek to maximize each students’, executive functioning skills by gradually increasing the difficulty of work according to individual ability. Through this model, our students learn how to handle more rigorous work, leading to an education that is challenging and engaging, not overwhelming.
