From The Founder's Desk
columnist: Walt Thiessen

Topic: Education
The Cause of Increases in Teen Suicide

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The Associated Press is reporting that, "the suicide rate among preteen and young teen girls spiked dramatically in a disturbing shift that federal health officials say they can't fully explain." Could the cause be our own institutions?

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by Walt Thiessen
(Libertarian)
Saturday, September 8, 2007

The Associated Press quotes a CDC report saying, "The suicide rate among preteen and young teen girls spiked dramatically in a disturbing shift that federal health officials say they can't fully explain." The AP article further stated that the report, "released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and suggests a troubling reversal in recent trends. Suicide rates had fallen by 28.5 percent since 1990 among young people."

Besides the obviously troubling nature of this report, it makes me wonder two things. First, is there a similar trend here in Fauquier County? Secondly (and perhaps more importantly) is it possible that our schools are contributing to this problem?

I looked up the CDC report online. I didn't find any statistical breakdowns below the national level. However, I did find that the AP report understated the CDC report's findings. From the report's first paragraph: "Results of that analysis indicated that, from 2003 to 2004, suicide rates for three sex-age groups (i.e., females aged 10-14 years and 15-19 years and males aged 15-19 years) departed upward significantly from otherwise declining trends." In other words, the increase wasn't just among teenage girls. It was also found among older teenage boys, who already have extraordinarily high rates of suicide compared to girls. The AP quoted Dr. Ileana Arias, director of the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control:

"Overall, there were 4,599 suicides among young people in 2004, making it the third-leading cause of death, surpassed only by car crashes and homicide, Arias said. Males committed suicide far more often than females, accounting for about three-quarters of suicides in this age group."

The rest of the report was disappointing in that it was most concerned with methods of suicide, as if it really matters what the method is. In truth, what really matters is why they're killing themselves at all. It also matters what the pressures are on other teens who might be dealing with similar influences but (fortunately) haven't yet taken the final, lethal step. The only hint about this came from the AP article, which said:

"As for why rates are up, Richard Lieberman, who coordinates the suicide prevention program for Los Angeles public schools, said one cause could be a rise in depression during tumultuous adolescent years."

Is it reasonable to assume that depression in teens is most likely due to adolescence? Personally, I doubt it. I'm much more suspicious that teen depression is caused by unnecessary pressures placed on teens by various aspects of society than by normal sexual development. I'm not just talking about teen peers, although they certainly play a role. No, I'm talking about society's institutions themselves, in particular its schools. I suggest that teen depression is much more readily explainable if we look at all the ways they are negatively impacted by schools. Negative institutional influences are not a recent phenomenon, but they have certainly escalated in prevalence over recent years.

For instance, could the "No Child Left Behind" Act be contributing to this trend? I believe it is. This act dramatically increased the amount of pressure placed on kids to pass standardized tests, such as Virginia's Standards of Learning (SOLs—an acronym I find to be ironic. I think of them as the Schools Out of Luck tests.) Even teachers privately grumble about this trend and the negative impact it has had on their classrooms.

How many of us have given thought to the fact that elementary school students are given regular homework? When I was growing up, homework in elementary school was virtually unheard of. Were we harmed by the lack? Hardly. To the contrary, I believe we were better off. The pressures being placed on our kids by our schools (and our governments) to succeed as measured by test scores has gotten out of hand.

As an example, I have a 10-year-old niece who is in the Bedford County school system. By standard measures she is behind the curve in reading. Because of this, she and her mother get inordinate amounts of pressure from her teachers about how she might be held back if she doesn't pass the SOLs to the government's satisfaction and how this will reflect poorly on the school and on her own record. My sister, her mother, on the other hand, is wise enough to know that there's nothing to panic about here. Kids learn at different rates from each other and at different times. My niece is a very bright young lady. She just doesn't care much about reading at this point in her life. Does that mean she must be branded as an underachiever for life? The government and the schools are determined to make her life miserable, if necessary, in order to insure that she stops being an underachiever by their standards.

But what of those kids who don't have moms with my sister's relaxed attitude? The pressure that is being placed on these kids to score well on tests is incredible. Could this pressure be contributing to increases in teen suicide rates? I suspect that it could. In fact, I think it's likely.

Of course, the percentage of teens who suicide compared to the entire population of teens is small. But if my guess is correct, the pressure isn't just affecting teens in the form of suicide. For instance, much has been made about increases in obesity among children. Obesity often has emotional aspects that come from family and school influences, influences which must be theraputically explored in order to overcome them. It is less likely that genetics is playing any significant role in the increase in teen obesity, because in order for that to be true there would have to be a greater chance of catching the "fat" gene when they're conceived. But what about exercise? The main source of childhood exercise is play. Yet, if a child is being asked in their elementary years to stay inside and do homework, they can't be outside playing. It's a classic Catch-22.

Then there are all the ways that traditional education takes responsibility and control away from kids. Most adults eventually learn (sometimes the hard way) that they acquired their own sense of responsibility best by having to handle the important decisions in their lives themselves, including the consequences of those decisions. Yet, somehow our schools have never learned this same truth. Everything about a kid's school day is planned out for them: what they will study; when they will study it; what tools they will use to study it; what's important for them to study; what's not important for them to study; how they will spend their time; etc. I have long been baffled by this approach. Don't schools understand that kids can't accept true responsibility for their own learning if everything is planned for them?

And what of testing itself? Surely, this is a highly overrated phenomenon. Everyone knows that the ones who do the best on tests are the ones who study most diligently for them, on average. Yet, how many people actually remember what they were studying six months, or a year, or ten years later? If the point of testing is to prove what you've learned, shouldn't the fact that you've forgotten it ten years later count against any measurements of your achievement? Clearly, testing doesn't take this into account.

When was the last time you, as an adult, tried to answer questions on an SOL exam? More importantly, how do you think you would do if you weren't given an opportunity to take an SOL exam after so many years? I doubt that most adults could even pass some of them now without first boning up on the subject, including adults who hold high-paying jobs in important industries. Does this mean that these adults are now failures, simply because they can't remember enough facts to pass a standardized test without brushing up on the subject first? Of course not. The proposition is ludicrous. But if testing is supposed to be the final word about what we've learned, then the proposition of testing itself is ludicrous, if our goal is to produce happy, healthy, growing, and productive adults from our schools.

This increase in teen suicide is a wakeup call that exposes only a tiny tip of what I believe is a very large iceberg, as surely as the one the famous ship Titannic hit nearly 100 years ago.. Our ship of education has crashed into a different, metaphorical iceberg and is preparing to sink, although most of the passengers don't even know it. Unless we as responsible adults and parents are willing to start considering the possibility that the iceberg is actually there, and that our "ship" has actually hit it, the potential fallout for the kids and their futures is devastating to consider.

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2007 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.
Published: Saturday, September 8, 2007
Last modified: Saturday, September 8, 2007

The views expressed in this article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Walt Thiessen is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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