by Robert Deckard

Created on: March 12, 2009

Young people face pressure everywhere they turn. Sports, parents, friends, boyfriends and girlfriends these forces all combine to create considerable tension in a youth's life. It is in school, however, that the most pressure may be felt. To many people surrounding a student, academic achievement is a direct reflection of that student's attitude and capability. Some may argue that the strain is too much, but is the pressure encountered inside the walls of the school building unrealistic in a world with increasingly high expectations?

One of the responsibilities of the school is to prepare a student for life as a contributing member of the work force, and there is a plentiful amount of pressure to perform while at work. As more and more states turn to standardized tests as a means to assess a school district's efficiency, some of the pressure felt by the district to perform is passed on to the student body. Additionally, schools have a responsibility to prepare a certain number of students for college. Individual students learn by various methods and at different paces, but it is necessary to achieve the goals set by the school.

Like it or not, this is not a far cry from the pressures felt in the workplace. For example, it is expected of a supervisor in each area of a shipping warehouse to maintain a certain pieces-per-hour rate each day determined by his or her managers. It is not the supervisor's job to decide this rate. It is, however, his or her job to move the workers in the area to achieve the goal. If this goal is not being met, the pressure felt by the supervisor is inevitably passed to the workers. Everyone certainly works at a different rate, but as a whole they need to meet expectations. It is up to the individual worker to carry his or her weight or be asked to find employment elsewhere.

In the sales industry, quotas are necessary not only for the survival of the company, but as a means of assessing the constituent branches of the company. You can bet that if one of the stores in the chain is underperforming, the manger will feel the heat. That heat is then doled out to the sales representatives in that particular store. Just like everyone has different learning styles in school, everyone has different sales techniques when dealing with prospective clients. If these techniques are not working, however, the sales rep needs to adapt, not the other way around.

These business models can be applied to the school system. It is a fact that everyone learns

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