A Snippet in Time

 Source Aidan Stern

Aidan Stern, Jan 23rd, 2024

Mr. Blumenthal has worked intermittently at BHS since the 1988-89 school year. I found him in his office busy with transcripts and acclimatizing a new student to our school. His office is tidy and organized just like his inbox that has no emails left unanswered or deleted. When I got a chance to interview him, I received a sense of how the high school has aged and adapted to shifts in culture, technology, and the pandemic. 

Throughout his impressive professional career, he worked for eight years in college admissions at the University of Lynchburg, nine years as a high school counselor at BHS while acquiring his Ph.D., three years as associate director of undergraduate admissions at Virginia Tech, seven years as the lead counselor at BMS, a year as the guidance coordinator at the Roanoke County Governor's School, and twelve years back as the lead counselor at Blacksburg high school for until he retired in 2020. He came back this year when the school needed a substitute counselor. From his experiences, he expressed his thoughts on the school system over this career. 

Yearly Trends

Enrollment keeps increasing while funding stagnates. With additional housing on Prices Fork and the growth of VT, more families are moving to the area. However, people struck down a 3-cent increase in property taxes to fund the school systems. This stagflation puts a strain on resources in the MCPS public school system.

Class interests have changed dramatically. The school dropped our Photography class entirely while we added options like African American history and AP seminar/research. Meanwhile, there is a rise in expanded virtual courses. Bruin block has been a helpful break in students’ days. Other popular courses include the Junior Reservists of the Cadets (JROTC), cybersecurity, and DE. Mr. Blumenthal also highlighted Earth Science II Oceanography as a popular new course that gives students another science option besides Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.

Recurring Problems

Mental health struggles are prevalent in high school and can be synonymous with the teenage experience. Especially in Blacksburg, mental health issues related to academics and sports are acute. While BHS has been successful in many aspects, these achievements haven’t come without drawbacks. The expansion of the college board and dual enrollment in the school further increased mental health issues. “From when I first began, although there was a fair amount of pressure and a lot of support for academics at blacksburg highschool, the move for continuing to add college board AP courses that were offered here, from 2-3 when I first arrived and now we have 24. Now I think we are at a point where we are putting tremendous amounts as a society and school division of pressure on our young people. We have a fair number of student that might be taking 16-18 semester hours of college course work as highschool students and at the same time they are involved in a tremendous amounts of extra curricular activities. ” 

The Double-Edged Sword

Technology resoundingly affects how teachers educate their students and has also played a significant role in establishing culture within our school. As Mr. Blumenthal stated,  “[T]he technology has helped us tremendously. When I first started, we would get a copy of a hand written report from each teacher and we would take the grade and write it on what they called a permanent record card the name of the course and both semester grades for each class. The permanent record card was the equivalent of the transcript so we’d have to copy everything and send it off to colleges, employers, or military recruiters.”

Technology has allowed for a vast expansion of the school curriculum and allowed for easy methods of study and grading. These advancements have helped students get better grades in more advanced subjects while getting continuous feedback from the internet. However, these advantages come with a cost. As a result of technology, parents can take a more active role in their student's schooling. Some examples include viewing grades, emailing teachers and school counselors, and intervening where their children are struggling. In short, technology allowed helicopter parents to develop. Furthermore, electronic access dehumanizes learning because students and teachers often don’t interact and learn from each other. A divide forms between students that hinder social interaction.

Work culture

Thinks its expectations put on teachers lead them to buckle. Mr. Blumenthal notes an alarming amount of turnover in teachers and staff since the pandemic has made it harder for teachers to connect with each other. While technology makes teaching more efficient, there have been other additive stresses associated with parents and the politics of the job. Therefore, teachers are burnt out and leave or retire from their profession.

Athletics

Mr. Blumenthal noted that athletics have become more specialized. There has been a continuous decrease in multi-sport athletes as many players pick one sport and play it year-round for outside school clubs in the off-season. A reason might be that many students hope to get an athletic scholarship to pay for college to fill in severely limited spots at the collegiate level. This specialization and emphasis on success has led to more overuse injuries and stress on students who also have to balance schoolwork.

Takeaways

While the average student today accomplishes much more than their previous counterparts, it comes at the expense of their happiness. Society, parents, and teachers try to drill into us a sense of work ethic that makes you stand above your competition. However, expectations for achievement are much higher than they were in the past. Is succes worth happiness? Is it healthy to push your body to its mental and physical limits? These questions are for you to decide.