An 'A' for perspective

NEEDHAM -- Paul Richards wants to change a culture, not to coddle its kids.

That would have been hard to discern from the mockery the principal of Needham High School was subjected to yesterday on talk radio.

Richards earned a full measure of media contempt not for awarding trophies to everyone on the varsity football team or for replacing letter grades with a pass-fail system. He was excoriated for suspending, on an experimental basis, the longstanding practice of publishing the names of honor roll students in the local newspaper.

"Gosh forbid we hurt anyone's feelings," sneered Scott Allen Miller of WRKO, whose scornful sentiments echoed across the dial. Richards is coddling underachievers. Richards is undermining academic excellence. Richards is setting kids up for a "big fall" when they have to compete in the "real world."

On the contrary, Richards is doing all he can to keep each of his 1,400 students strong to transition into that world. He is investigating, by trial and error, how a school system might nurture all of its students while celebrating those who excel. It is not an easy balance to strike anywhere; it's especially difficult in suburban Boston.

He never suggested that sending a congratulatory letter home to honor roll recipients instead of publishing their names would eliminate the competitive zeal. But it might lower in some small way the unprecedented level of stress that high school students themselves recognize as both unnatural and unhealthy.

"This high expectations/high achievement culture has a dark side to it," Richards wrote in a letter to parents and students, more than 60 of whom contacted him this week to applaud or question his decision, feedback that was evenly divided. "Our stress survey data identifies a sub-culture among students where grades are scrutinized, argued over, compared within groups, and are a contributor to a general environment of comparisons between peers. While any of these behaviors are not extreme when isolated, the cumulative effect can be stress inducing (and not the good kind of stress that helps us all perform, meet deadlines and grow.)"

Credit Richards with making the effort to collect that data. This is his third year as principal in a town that has suffered four suicides of young people since he took the helm at the high school. In another school system, those tragedies might have been addressed in isolation, or not at all. Richards has been part of a town wide effort to try to understand what cultural factors might be contributing to the despair of its teenagers.

Richards is not alone in his views about stress. Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions at MIT, has made a mission of talking to parents and school administrators across the country about the need to reduce the pressure to compete. She calls it "turning down the flame."

Last spring, in the aftermath of yet another suicide, townspeople gathered to talk about causes and solutions. More than a few Needham students predicted that night that the attention would fade, "until the next time."

That has not happened in Needham, where teachers, administrators, counselors, parents, and students are willing to try some small changes in hopes of a bigger payoff. Talk to honor roll students in the parking lot after class and it is clear that not many of them care whether their name makes it into print. All of them care about the suicides that have, in part, defined their high school years.

Everyone knows the names of the academic stars as well as they know the names of their school's sports heroes. All of them deserve to be celebrated. Richards has only questioned the method. "By having an Honor Roll in the first place, the school participates in a sorting of students," he acknowledged in his letter to parents and students.

Why pillory someone trying to find such a delicate balance? Paul Richards goes to the funerals; the media mouths do not.

Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com.