Survey results offer positive picture of Eden Prairie’s youth
October 7, 2008
Eden Prairie News
Submitted by Leah Shaffer on April 30, 2008 – 1:12pm.
Three years ago, when looking at the results of the Minnesota Student Survey, the picture showed an Eden Prairie student population that was noticeably stressed.
The good news, as delivered by the school district’s Prevention Coordinator Michael Stanefski during this year’s Partnership Breakfast, is that there have been some decreases in those levels since 2004.
“Although there is improvement, there still is work to be done,” he noted.
That same thought could apply to most of the results of the survey, which offered up some “encouraging trends” and areas for continued vigilance.
The Minnesota Student Survey is given every three years to students in the sixth, ninth and 12th grades. According to the Minnesota Department of Education Web site, the voluntary survey asks questions related to chemical use, sexual behavior, dietary behavior, physical activity and issues of violence. Some questions are related to how students perceive the schools and community they are in. By those standards, Eden Prairie results come back very positive.
“By and large, our students feel really good about Eden Prairie schools,” said Stanefski.
An average of 96 percent of EP students reported feeling safe at school all or most of the time, according to the results.
Stanefski noted that some of “the most dramatic results” were amongst the ninth-grade students.
According to the results summary:
* Acts of violence at school declined for all grades.
* Use of alcohol by sixth- and ninth-graders, in the last 30 days and last year “is at an all-time low.”
* Reported use of other chemical substances in the last 12 months such as cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, LSD and inhalants, has declined from 2004.
* All grades show an increase in reports of physical activity
* There is a significant decrease in the reports of sexual intercourse among ninth-grade students
Areas of concern
Among 12th-grade students, there has been less change since 2004.
* Ten percent of 12th-graders report smoking cigarettes 10 or more days per month, the same level from 2004. Sixty percent report use of alcohol in the last 12 months
* Reported use of marijuana amongst ninth- and 12th-grade students has “remained relatively constant,” according to the results summary.
* Among sexually active 12th-grade students, “significantly fewer” report using some form of birth control.
* One notable increase from 2004 is the number of ninth- and 12th-grade students who report “never talking with their partner(s) about STD/HIV/AIDS or pregnancy.”
Stanefski stressed the importance of parents having conversations on these issues with their children often, not just once a year.
Seeking the spark
The featured speaker of Eden Prairie Community Education Services Annual Partnership Breakfast offered a different perspective on student success.
Peter Benson, president of the Search Institute, talked of the importance of igniting the “sparks” within the youth of the community.
The Search Institute, according to its Web site, is an “independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide leadership, knowledge and resources to promote healthy children, youth and communities.”
Benson posed a different response to the question of: How it is going with your kids?
The answer depends on your definition of success, he noted.
If that definition related to risk behavior, achievement tests and youth engagement, by all those measures, “You’re doing really well, in Eden Prairie.”
“But I would argue that in American society now there is something missing, when the metrics for success are around those forms of achievement. They are important, but something is missing.”
Many youth of America now have lost a sense of purpose, he said. That purpose, or what gives someone passion and energy in life, was what Benson dubbed the “spark” that is within everyone.
Benson said it is very easy to assume that healthy development is related to what we put inside our youth, what we teach the young. He would argue that the more important process “is what we pull out of them.”
Spark is “part of the process of being human,” he said.
Every teenager has something inside “that is good and beautiful and useful to the world,” he added.
In researching his latest book titled “Sparks and the Process of Human Thriving,” Benson polled and interviewed teenagers from across the United States.
The key to pulling sparks from those youth is to have “spark champions,” those people who see the potential within someone.
To clarify the idea of a spark champion, he offered a quote from e.e. cummings which reads: “We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals deep inside of us there’s something valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our touch, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
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