It goes without saying that WJ has an extremely rigorous academic culture, holding a position within the top 15 high schools across Maryland. WJ boasts a 72% Advanced Placement (AP) enrollment rate and ranks 7th out of the 29 high schools in Montgomery County. With these stats, it is clear that WJ is one of the top high schools in the region, offering a wide range of honors and AP courses and extracurriculars. Looking at WJ’s portfolio, the question must be asked: does WJ’s overbearing academic culture have an overarching positive or negative impact on the lives of WJ students?
First, it is important to dispel the notion that ambition in academics is always and forever a good thing. Having the motivation to succeed in school and at home is extremely valuable and an amazing thing for students to learn, but where this drive comes from is crucial in determining if ambition at school will have the desired impact on a student’s life.
Individuals who find their motivation from within can often push themselves to achieve great things in their adult lives. However, having the desire to accomplish something as a result of the environment around you is more often than not a short-lived and unhealthy source of motivation that uses peer pressure as a tool to force accomplishment.
Looking specifically at WJ students, the source of motivation to excel both inside and outside of the classroom can certainly come from within, but at such a young age it is likely that students have only a vague idea of what they want to accomplish as individuals in the future. Considering this, it is far more likely that the desire of students to participate in the hardest classes and most demanding extracurriculars comes from the behaviors reflected in a student’s surrounding peers.
The root of said motivation likely comes not from the belief that you as a student should strive to be the best you can be to benefit yourself, but from the idea that success in school is imperative to prevent yourself from falling behind your peers. The irony in this situation is that because every student individually believes they risk lagging behind their peers, each student will strive to fulfill imaginary standards they set for themselves that never actually existed.
Regardless of the source from which motivation sprouts, another aspect of this question is whether students would strive to push themselves academically without pressure from peers. If WJ were a mid-tier high school with average academics, it is likely that the vast majority of students in the top percentile would not find the same academic success that is present at WJ. This is because WJ is a relatively challenging high school. The academic culture at WJ motivates students to stay on pace with their overachieving colleagues, making ‘average’ feel more like sub-par.
Will students look back on their high school years and realize that the stress and hardship they went through was unknowingly worth the effort, or will they find that they sacrificed much of their social life and mental health for something that was ultimately fabricated? The reality is that WJ culture plays a major role in how we as students formulate a work ethic. As for whether or not a balance can be struck between healthy motivation and self-care, that is up to the individual.
