America is a nation obsessed with winning. We're so afraid that our kids won't be prepared for jobs when they finish school -- which could ultimately cost us our tenuous competitive edge in the global economy -- that we pile on the homework and make getting into college the focal point of life from middle school on.
Is this obsession with achievement equipping our children for real life? Or are they simply getting the message that it's no longer about how they play the game, but about winning at all costs? Recent trends suggest that kids aren't working harder but "smarter," often with the aid of dangerous prescription drugs.
"Smart Pills" Invade the Classroom
Performance-enhancing drugs used to be a "sports" problem. Now they are an issue for anyone who wants to stay competitive in school. Disproportionately, it is the teens earning As and Bs, striving to get into the nation's top universities -- not the stereotypical druggies -- who are finding themselves sidelined by a stint in drug rehab for prescription drug abuse.
Children are learning that success comes not by training, practice and hard work, but by taking shortcuts. We tell young people, "Don't use drugs," but our beliefs and actions encourage them to win at all costs. There's a whole group of scientists who, in a 2008 editorial in Nature, welcomed the use of "cognitive enhancers" to produce a nation of people performing at their best. They have been joined by a contingency of parents who are willing to overlook, or even encourage, their children to boost their academic performance using prescription drugs.
Not surprisingly, young people are less likely to view study drugs as cheating than steroid use in sports. More youth are asking, "Why work hard, stay up all night studying and still risk not doing well when you can pop a pill, get good grades, and make teachers, parents and coaches happy?" The question some have asked is, how is using performance-enhancing drugs to improve grades any more fair than using steroids to play better baseball?
To the Head of the Class, But at What Price?
One in 10 teens has used Adderall or Ritalin without a doctor's prescription, reports The Partnership at Drugfree.org. Studies show 1 in 4 college students have misused ADHD medications. And there's no reason to assume prescription drug abuse ends after college. Researchers have reported that professors, scientists and academics also misuse prescription drugs to improve their professional standing.
Students use prescription stimulants to enhance their focus and boost their energy, which reportedly allows them to study faster, remember more and earn the grades expected by the nation's elite universities. The drugs are relatively cheap and easy to get, usually from friends, student dealers or by faking ADHD symptoms to get a prescription.
What few teens (and apparently, few adults) realize is that misusing prescription drugs has consequences. Studies show that abusing ADHD drugs can lead to depression, mood swings, exhaustion, heart rate and blood pressure irregularities, and psychosis. In large doses, users may experience convulsions and hallucinations.These risks are particularly worrisome among adolescents and young adults whose brains and bodies are still developing at a rapid rate.
One of the most severe, yet often overlooked, risks is addiction. "Study drugs," which include Adderall, Vyvanse, Ritalin and Focalin, have been classified as Schedule II controlled substances (in the same class as cocaine) by the Drug Enforcement Administration because they have high potential for abuse. Teens who abuse ADHD meds are also more likely to abuse prescription painkillers, sleep aids and illicit drugs like cocaine, meth or heroin.
Cooperation Over Competition
A shift away from performance-enhancing drugs won't happen until we teach our children the value of cooperation over competition. Human beings are not inherently competitive, research suggests, but rather learn to compete as a result of cultural norms and social training. A more natural -- and more productive -- approach requires going against the "scarcity" mindset that says my success requires your failure.
It not only feels better to live, play and work in an environment where no one loses, but it is more likely to breed achievement, research suggests. Studies show that stress, depression and low self-esteem result from competition, whereas cooperation has been linked to emotional maturity and a strong sense of self. When other people are viewed as opponents rather than friends or collaborators, there is a lack of trust that prohibits creative problem-solving and full utilization of every individual's unique talents and skills.
Parents hope that competition will help their kids "toughen up" for the inevitable hardships of life. And while there is some benefit in challenging ourselves to find out what we're capable of, competition often has the opposite effect. The humiliation of losing can leave lasting scars, while the euphoria of victory fades quickly because it is based on a shaky sense of self-worth. Somewhere down the line, every winner will lose. Someone will always be better, smarter, faster.
A New Definition of Success
Competition can produce great accomplishments, but is it teaching our children the kind of lessons that will matter 10 or 20 years down the line? Even for those who go on to receive top honors from the nation's best universities and land prestigious jobs with impressive salaries, have they learned anything about the type of person they want to be? Are they content?
We need a new definition of intelligence based not only on academic prowess but also emotional intelligence, life skills and other abilities -- and a new definition of success based on a young person's health and satisfaction rather than the name of the college they'll be attending. Having goals and going after them is admirable, but living someone else's dream is a waste of a child's unique talents. Genuine confidence isn't built on achievement alone but also who each child is as a human being, regardless of how they stack up to anyone else.
David Sack, M.D., is board certified in psychiatry, addiction psychiatry and addiction medicine. He is CEO of Elements Behavioral Health, a network of addiction treatment programs that includes Promises Treatment Centers, The Ranch outside Nashville, The Sexual Recovery Institute, and The Recovery Place.
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Unfortunately, current drug education is largely inadequate and too often focuses on particular drugs rather than on the brain. Furthermore, kids get mixed messages about drugs, what with the ubiquitous advertising they see that equates alcohol with sex and fun and avoids discussing the consequences, and to a lesser extent the "silver bullet" solution message of most prescription drug advertising.
Education is key. For a not-for-profit website that discusses the science of substance use and abuse in accessible English (how alcohol and drugs work in the brain; how addiction develops; why addiction is a chronic, progressive brain disease; what parts of the brain malfunction as a result of substance abuse; how that malfunction skews decision-making and motivation, resulting in addict behaviors; why some get addicted while others don't; how treatment works; how well treatment works; why relapse is common; what family and friends can do; etc.) please click on www.AddictScience.com.
Steve Castleman
AddictScience.com
I wholeheartedly agree; there is more to success than grades, GPA, what was your major, and what honors you received. But has anyone told this to our universities, our colleges, our graduate programs, our employers?
Too many colleges still focus on GPA, SAT scores, and honors received as an indicator of admission.
To many graduate programs do likewise, with the GRE, GPA, and projects and awards.
Dr. Sacks, would you have gotten in to medical school based on your " emotional intelligence, life skills and other abilities" and not your grades. Based on current wisdom, I think not.
Wishful thinking about how things could be does little good unless the arbiters and gatekeepers of the academic and practical worlds change their own thinking and expectations to stop focusing on grades and start looking at other factors. Unfortunately, many of those are less tangible and more subjective and, therefore, harder to judge and quantify for admissions.
The real story of course is that these substances are highly addictive, have massive withdrawal associated with them and nobody really understands the long term effects.
Better living through chemistry...
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.
—William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203—6
This line itself is ironic; Miranda was raised for most of her life on an isolated island, and the only people she ever knew were her father and his servants, an enslaved savage and spirits, namely Ariel. When she sees other people for the first time, she is understandably overcome with excitement, and utters, among other praise, the famous line above. However, what she is actually observing is not men acting in a refined or civilized manner, but rather drunken sailors staggering off the wreckage of their ship. Huxley employs the same irony when the "savage" John refers to what he sees as a "brave new world."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
Also if you dont have your health you wont have your money, given high healthcare expenses and the fact you need to be healthy to work, putting in jeopardy your health both in the short term and long term will not yield you significant monetary gains.
But all in all money shouldnt define who you are and doesnt prepare you for a life of happiness, however cliche that may sound.
And why wouldn't money define who I am, I'm very skeptical about the idea that human beings are inherently sacred or at least above, in some way, the material world. In this life, no matter how short it is, material wealth can increase your level of comfort and I dare say, happiness. I've spent a great deal of time thinking about the sort of life that I would like to live and to say something cliche myself, my model of the good life looks somewhat like the Hollywood model of a good life. I'm not saying that its perfect but compared to the nameless and forgettable existence given to the bulk of us I would like more, and it seems to me that money paves the way.
1. One does not have to be a super-student to succeed in life. Not even to go to a decent school.
2. Money may be the supreme currency, but one can get by with less than we are led to believe. Our modern economic system demands that people buy goods and use services (all requiring money to do so), in order to generate revenue that companies use to pay their employees and shareholders, and other costs. But this demand is just that: a demand, not a requirement. There are lots of things one can do to get out of the "rat race" and be less dependent on money. Not all of us are in situations where we can grow our own food, and make our own products for self-consumption, but we can simply cut down on buying things just for the sake of ownership. Check out National Buy Nothing Day.
Abolishing your health, always gets a cheer or sneer from the losing section.
This equals out to I wish I had = Baboons to Chimps = Violence and Anger/ don't care, of not quite known.
Ideally, competition is not about self-esteem. It's about achievement. Would you rather be a tortured genius, or a contented second-rate performer? If you chose tortured, competition has a place. You never know what you can do until you try, but that begs the question of _what_ to try. If you know approximately what the greatest achievement you're capable of is, you can try to do that and see whether you succeed. But if you can't even tell what achievement represents complacent underperformance and what self-destructive ambition, competition will set a standard to strive for.
Those who try to use drugs in place of study will not do well--and they are likely to cheat.
Have drug will travel, prligram...
Wouldn't it be nice to be involved in our own governance again? To stop having the almighty dollar and standardized testing run our lives would be so beautifully alleviating of most of our stresses. We simply have to start being responsible for ourselves and our children, but law interferes with even the possibility of such a thing. Until we 'secure' ourselves and our communities, we will never have the chance to fix our own problems and Big Brother will gladly continue to do so for us. From kids on drugs, to multi-national fraud cartels, nothing significant will be done about any of it unless we hold ourselves and our leaders accountable for their actions.
We have the false comfort that our every move is merely being monitored and manipulated rather than seeing American citizens snatched and thrown in military prisons... so far. If the oligarchs wanted one of us to disappear, the legal means are already in place now.
are going to pot:
Smoking Marijuana GOOD For Lungs
10 Jan 2012
Journal of the American Medical Association put a dent in the arguments against Marijuana smoking today, with release of a new report showing casual pot smokers might even have stronger lungs than non smokers.
Researchers say that there is good evidence that occasional marijuana use can cause an increase in lung airflow rates and lung volume. Volume is measured as the total amount of air a person can blow out after taking the deepest breath they can.
The study, which was carried out by The University of California, San Francisco, and The University of Alabama at Birmingham, spans over more than two decades and involves more than 5000 men and women, in four American cities : Birmingham, Chicago, Oakland, Calif., and Minneapolis.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/printerfriendlynews.php?newsid=240146