February 24, 2015<\/p>\n
Work loads in high school can be extreme, causing some kids to think about cheating or taking study drugs. GSE senior lecturer Denise Pope comments on the problem and possible solutions, such as cutting homework load and ensuring kids get enough “play time, down time and family time.”<\/p>\n
In a shifting economy without any assurances of success, there\u2019s a lot of pressure on students to succeed in school. More and more kids are going to college and the application process is competitive. To help stand out, students are taking on tougher course loads, along with extracurricular activities and leadership roles. In order to pack everything in, some kids turn to prescription drugs like Adderall and Ritalin to stay awake and focus on school work and test prep. They can obtain the medication from doctors, peers and sources they find online. However, many of these students, both in high school and in college, don\u2019t know the physical or neurological ramifications of taking drugs that haven\u2019t been prescribed to them by a doctor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live in this culture of excellence,\u201d said Michael McCutcheon, a counseling psychology phD candidate at New York University, on KQED\u2019s Forum, \u201cand if you are at a competitive high school and you know the culture really only celebrates success or money, then everything is riding on this test.\u201d That overwhelming pressure \u2013 the feeling that every test and grade matters for ones future \u2013 combined with ease of access to these drugs makes their use seductive. Stanford Graduate School of Education senior lecturer Denise Pope found similar experiences among thousands of high school students she has interviewed or observed in her work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese kids are completely overloaded,\u201d Pope said. \u201cThey come from high achieving schools, but these kids feel like there\u2019s more homework than there is time in a day.\u201d She cited increased pressure to take Advanced Placement or honors classes that require lots of homework, along with the explosion of extracurricular activities and the time students devote to them as some of the reasons for increased stress.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kids who cheat in high school, absolutely cheat in college,\u201d Pope said. \u201cMy guess would be that if this is negative coping strategy that you are employing, it\u2019s your go-to strategy when you have the stress and overload in college.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, study drugs are most often used by high achieving high school students and among college student-athletes and those who participate in the Greek system. A 2009 review of the literature on study drugs found that anywhere between five and nine percent of middle and high school students, and five to 35 percent of college students use prescription drugs to stay awake and focus longer than they would normally.<\/p>\n
What Study Drugs Do to the Brain<\/strong><\/p>\n Drugs like Adderall and Ritalin are prescribed to kids with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). These kids are easily distracted by visual or auditory background noises, which can overwhelm them and<\/p>\n make it hard to focus. People with ADD or ADHD don\u2019t produce enough dopamine in the brain, which the drugs help correct.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are meant to increase dopamine in the brain, which regulates two things: executive functioning and the rewards system in the brain,\u201d said Michelle Goldsmith, assistant clinical professor at Stanford. \u201cBoth of those things come into play when we talk about attention.\u201d<\/p>\n For kids who actually need Adderall or Ritalin, the brain\u2019s dopamine pathways aren\u2019t strong enough to circulate the neural signals that make certain mental processes go. For those kids the added dopamine can have a huge influence on ability to focus, but also comes with some less desirable side effects when the drug wears off like fatigue, depression and mood-swings. There\u2019s a lot less known about how the drug affects brains that start out with normal dopamine levels because clinicians consider it too risky to conduct a study that would subject \u201cnormal\u201d students to the drug.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question is do they really help normal people with learning,\u201d Goldsmith said, \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been any reason to study them because the risks are so significant.\u201d Those risks include depression, psychosis, mood swings, suicidal thoughts, seizures, decreased appetite and insomnia.<\/p>\n Read the full story at KQED. Denise Pope is a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success(link is external).<\/p>\n Source:\u00a0\u00a0 https:\/\/ed.stanford.edu\/\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/mindshift\/2015\/02\/teaching-kids-to-learn-without-study-dru. 24th February 2015<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 24, 2015 Work loads in high school can be extreme, causing some kids to think about cheating or taking study drugs. GSE senior lecturer Denise Pope comments on the problem and possible solutions, such as cutting homework load and ensuring kids get enough “play time, down time and family time.” In a shifting economy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-sector-papers","category-effects-of-drugs-papers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}