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Written by Stacie M. Waldman

Published: 05 April 2016

Created: 05 April 2016

Last Updated: 05 April 2016

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When we canceled our ski trip in December due to the lack of snow in Vermont, we were pretty confident there would be great spring skiing. With plans to go to Okemo the week of March 19th with our two kids, we began to hesitate when the temperature reached 77 degrees on March 9. That night, my husband and I began frantically searching for flights to warm places with all-inclusive hotels with little luck. We were about to settle on a boring beach condo in Florida when kayak.com picked up some cheap, direct flights to Panama in Central America. We'd been before as a couple in 2005 and thought our six and eight-year-old kids might be up for the adventure. We had a solid eight days to read thousands of Tripadvisor reviews and plan the trip...no problema. We decided to go for it and a few days later we found ourselves and our kids in Panama.

Day 1: We awoke in our Panama City hotel to no hot water but a lovely free breakfast. We found our guide, Luis on a Tripadvisor forum, and he actually showed up to take us to a couple sights around the city. I was delighted to see seat belts in his car for the kids, although these proved to be the last seat belts I saw. We got to the Panama Canal (the Miraflores Locks) by 9 am, or in tourist talk, before the crowds descended. We were able to watch a container ship and a grain ship pass through the set of locks. It's fascinating. Using simple gravity, the water in the locks is lowered (or raised) 54 feet allowing ships to pass through the canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean or vice versa. Soon our bored and hot kids were ready to tour the museum and try the simulator where you captain the ship as you make your way through the canal. From there, Luis took us to the top of Ancon Hill which boasts an unbeatable view of Panama City. The bonus was seeing a sloth with her baby and some very large Golden Orb Weaver spiders. From there we caught a flight out to the Bocas Del Toro islands in northeastern Panama.

Days 2, 3, 4: A quick flight brought us into the tiny island airport and we hopped in a boat with the lodge owner. Tranquilo Bay Eco Adventure Lodge is situated on Isla Bastimentos, a paradise-like island, surrounded by coral-filled waters and home to a rainforest of flora and fauna. We were taken to our private cabana, where we applied some (provided) bug spray, and headed up the 63-foot canopy tower to bird watch. The kids were excited to see so many pairs of bright green red-lored parrots flying right by our heads. After the tenth pair of birds flew by the kids were "bored" again and we abandoned bird watching for dinner.

Our daily rate at Tranquilo Bay included food and drinks. We had a chance to mingle with the other families prior to dinner who were a lovely and interesting bunch. Ironically they were ALL from New York (Larchmont and Manhattan). Our kids were the youngest and we got a lot of "wow, that's brave" remarks about bringing our kids to Panama. While the kids were being entertained by (or possibly entertaining) the four kids who live at the resort, we ate delicious steaks and enjoyed a massive piece of chocolate cake. The owners of the lodge have four kids who are homeschooled in the mornings (free in the afternoons), and our kids really enjoyed hanging out with them.

Day 3 began with a hearty breakfast. We all loved the fresh juices especially the passion fruit juice. We met Natalia and Ramon, the two on-site guides employed by the lodge who led us down to the dock where Natalia could (hopefully) teach our kids to snorkel. They're great swimmers, but we were surprised to see how easily they picked up snorkeling. We spent the morning with knowledgeable and patient Natalia, learning about every fish we saw and then took the kayaks out to a nearby reef for more snorkeling. It was beautiful. Our daughter learned how to avoid fire coral and how to safely pick up sea urchins. We came back to the lodge for a quick lunch and went right back out for more snorkeling and kayaking, and the kids even tried stand up paddle boarding. It was a perfect afternoon. Dinner was jackfish (which both kids ate, even thought they won't even try fish at home.) Then it was dark enough to go on the spider hunt that our 6-year-old son planned with Natalia despite his mother's severe arachnophobia.

We awoke in the morning for a hike in the rainforest with Ramon, the hotel's other on-site guide. We were fascinated by Ramon's knowledge of the local environment. Every tree we passed suddenly became interesting as did every bird sound and breaking branch. We learned that termites are edible and they're actually pretty delicious.  We saw a sloth in a tree with her baby and hummingbirds gleefully bathing. We saw orange poison dart frogs and male orange-collared manakin birds competing for the females by doing a mating dance on the forest floor. We learned how pineapples and cashews grow. After about an hour and a half, the kids were ready for the water so we headed out with Ramon on some kayaks across the bay and through mangrove canopies to "Jellyfish Lagoon". We hopped in the water with our snorkel gear and were amazed to see a completely different underwater scene: upside down jellyfish, moon jellyfish, spotted eagle rays, a giant snail, and a funny little purple swimming worm. We watched the sun set and the moon rise at the dock that night before dinner and once again enjoyed the thoughtful and locally sourced cuisine.

Our last morning at Tranquilo Bay, we took one last walk to the top of the canopy tower, said goodbye to the resident sloth, and went for one more snorkel and swim. Although the lodge offers many different excursions, the guides are included in the package we chose and we never felt the need to leave the grounds. After lunch we were taken by boat back to the main island, Isla Colon, and the do-it-yourself part of our Panamanian adventure began.

Days 5 & 6: Since Easter is a popular vacation week, our lodging choices for the final days of the vacation on Isla Colon in Bocas Town were somewhat limited. We ended up at a B&B called Lula's. It was just okay and if you're going to stay on the island, I recommend you look elsewhere. We self-arranged a boat tour around the Bocas Del Toro islands for the day and were put on a boat for 16 people, 12 of whom were in their early twenties and from Venezuela and drinking hard liquor at 10 AM. We were the other four. Our bilingual guide apparently forgot his English but we still had an enjoyable day seeing dolphins, snorkeling at coral key where there's coral every color of the rainbow, observing active sloths in trees, playing with different types of starfish and spending a few hours on a picturesque beach. Our Venezuelan friends turned out to be nice (though very drunk). The next morning, we took a water taxi to a local beach and hung out until it was time to get our baggage. We walked from the B&B to the airport (kids loved being able to do that) and departed for Panama City. Luckily, our Panama City hotel had a rooftop pool (for the kids) and a rooftop bar (for the non-kids). In swimsuits, our son took it upon himself to do a mosquito bite count: dad- 34, sister- possibly 1, himself- 4, mom- 78!

Day 7: Another do-it-yourself day. The Best Western Zen Panama Hotel, a lucky find online, had one of the most incredible breakfasts I've ever had at a hotel. Between that and the luxe pool area, there was no sign this was a Best Western except for on the actual sign. We were impressed with the service, the amenities, the cleanliness, and the location of the hotel. It was the best $85 spent on lodging and I'd almost fly back to Panama just to stay there again. We learned very quickly that in Panama, if you take a taxi from your hotel, you will be pay between 3-5x the amount that you'll pay if you walk to the corner and hail one yourself. Our daughter loved learning how to bargain (in Spanglish) so we counted the haggling as part of our adventure and had fun with it. We took a $3 (not a $12!) ride to Parque Natural Metropolitano, a protected area within Panama City limits. As a family, we took turns being the nature guide in an attempt to keep the kids interested. The amount of wildlife we saw right in Panama City was astounding. In just over two hours of hiking, we encountered monkeys, sloths, (the kind that look like they're always smiling), Jesus Christ Lizards, turtles, lots of colorful birds, agoutis, and loads ants and termites. Our kids understood a lot more about the rainforest ecosystem thanks to our guides at Tranquilo Bay.

We spent the rest of the day swimming, reflecting on our trip and marveling that we had been so hesitant to take our kids to Panama. When I asked my daughter if she preferred Disney World or an adventure trip I was very gratified to hear her answer.

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Written by Stacie M. Waldman

Published: 11 April 2016

Created: 11 April 2016

Last Updated: 11 April 2016

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A well-attended talk by Vicki Abeles at the Scarsdale Middle School on Wednesday, April 6 has gotten parents, teachers and school administrators talking.

Ms. Abeles, an ex-Wall Street lawyer and mother of 3, is now well known as an author and documentary film producer. Her topic of expertise? The current state of our education system and the impact it is having on students. She produced the 2007 film "Race to Nowhere" and more recently the film "Beyond Measure" that portrays our schools as pressure cookers that are actually making our kids sick. "Beyond Measure" is also a published book. The films were creatively distributed at the community level.

She began her presentation by describing a day in the life of a student: Wake up early to finish school work, get to school by 7-8 AM, attend school for 7 hours, head to tutor/sports/clubs/religious school/band rehearsals after school, eat dinner, begin school work around 8 PM. Before formulating her position she visited hundreds of schools where she witnessed extreme anxiety among students. She met students who had somatic conditions as young as 6, cutting behaviors, sleep deprivation, anxiety, and students who were suicidal. She was quick to point out that stress and pressure crosses socioeconomic barriers using as an example a kid from an impoverished area who could be the first in the family to do well enough in school to receive a scholarship to college. Ms. Abeles said, "Many parents think kids need to work extremely hard because they're paying their dues until college. But the achievement race isn't allowing children to thrive; it's actually doing the opposite. We aren't teaching kids how to become good at something other than getting good grades," she continued. "They're good at doing school, but not at taking risks." She also spoke about the student perspective of feeling that they're constantly being measured and graded.

Ms. Abeles presented and defended her view and presented data to demonstration that the "drive for success" is making kids sick by inducing unprecedented stress; this stress, she claimed, is leading to high levels of anxiety and depression. She referenced Dr. Stuart Slavin, a medical professor from St. Louis, who spoke to a Scarsdale audience last week. "We are conducting an enormous experiment on our entire American student population," she quoted him as saying. He said that medical students had severe depression and anxiety to the tune of 50% and 80% respectively. However, when he implemented certain interventions like a half day off a week and pass/fail for certain courses, depression and anxiety decreased and board scores actually increased.

She quoted the CDC saying "...teens get two hours less sleep per night than they need, on average." The American Psychological Association reported that nearly 1 in 3 teenagers said that stress made them sad or depressed and that the number one source of their stress was school.

It is interesting to note that schoolwork was not cited as the source of stress and Abeles did not consider social stress and social media that can also make teens anxious. Furthermore, when I read the APA article, I found that Ms. Abeles left out other information in the study, namely that teens who reported high stress during the past school year also said they spend an average of 3.2 hours a day online compared with less than 2 hours among those reporting low levels of stress.

Ms. Abeles spent the next half of the session with a call to action. She named those who are responsible for the "crisis" we are experiencing in schools: helicopter parents, unreasonable parents, school administrators, college admissions officers, the media and even congress. "The real answer is our collective culture," she said, "and we all play a role in this. So we can all play a role in changing this."

Abeles recommends the following to make kids happy, healthy and engaged in learning:

• Prioritize wellness, create an education task force, have community nights off, change graduation requirements, reinvent the high school transcript
• Recalibrate time: safeguard time outside of school hours, later start times, reduced homework, upgraded seminars driven by student interest, block schedule
• Transform learning- make it personalized and experiential, blend across subjects

What can parents do to help?
Ms. Abeles would like to see parents take a more relaxed approach to school and the college admissions process.

What can educators do to help?
Ms. Abeles advises emphasizing curiosity and exploration over test prep, limiting/abolishing tests and other number driven evaluations, limiting/abolishing homework starting with weekends and vacations, and limiting work that gets graded and encouraging iteration, editing, or prototyping instead.

The Scarsdale crowd was asked, "If you had a magic wand, what would you change about your school?" Here were some of the responses:

"I'd like to see more self direction in terms of what's studied."

"I'd like to see the homework issue addressed, especially on the weekends. Social relationships shouldn't be put to the side because of homework."

"I would have elementary school start earlier and high school start later because of natural sleep patterns."

"I would like to see fewer tests and quizzes given. They create a lot of stress."
"I want more down time and more time in nature and for play. Also, the opportunity to let our kids make mistakes."

"Kids are bombarded with grades as of middle school- 6th grade."

"Stop rankings of schools. It just drives the competition and gives a lot of mixed messages. There is no best high school. This is a big contributor to the stress we feel as parents."

"Assignments can be more efficient rather than just busywork."

"I'd like to see the drug use issue addressed. I recently graduated from Scarsdale High School and I can tell you that there ARE drugs here. And there's no acknowledgment of it."

"Open art studios in schools."

Overall, homework was the number one thing parents wanted changed in the Scarsdale schools.

Ms. Abeles closed her talk by saying, "Your kids deserve a childhood. You have a responsibility to take action. We are stealing their childhoods from them as well as their futures."

To catch the film, click here:
To purchase the book, click here:

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Written by Joanne Wallenstein

Published: 30 March 2016

Created: 30 March 2016

Last Updated: 31 March 2016

Hits: 11493

Dr. Stuart Slavin, Associate Dean for Curriculum at the St. Louis University School of Medicine brought surprising news to the staff of Scarsdale High School, who had gathered on March 24, their staff conference day, to listen to his findings on student stress and anxiety. Scarsdale teachers, deans and health professionals already knew that their high school students were stressed, but just how stressed?

Slavin reported that he had done surveys of medical students and high school students, and much to his surprise he learned that high school students suffer from even more depression and anxiety than first year medical students. His work began with medical students and in 2014 he presented findings that showed that depression among medical school students is significant, affecting between 20 and 30 percent of medical students in the U.S., and potentially compromising their mental health for years to come. More recently, a study of 1,403 high school students in the Bay Area revealed that 54% showed symptoms of moderate to severe depression and 80% had moderate to severe anxiety. Slavin said, ""This is so far beyond what you would typically see in an adolescent population ...it's unprecedented."

But Slavin didn't come to Scarsdale only to validate the issue. He also delivered a hopeful message. The stress is not something we're powerless to control. He shared some successful and low-cost strategies that were used to reduce stress at the medical school and challenged the SHS staff to think about how they could implement similar tactics to improve the quality of life for students at SHS and possibly improve their academic results.

At the medical school, Slavin and his team allowed students to take some of the hardest courses on a pass/fail grading system. Human anatomy is one of the most difficult for new students and the school switched to pass/fail and found that students' anxiety decreased while their retention of important information increased. They also gave students more time to pursue their own interests and created small learning groups to strengthen connections. They looked at the curriculum to see if they could teach less material. According to Slavin, teaching "more does not always lead to a better outcome."

By making small changes, the faculty witnessed significant decreases in the anxiety level of the student body while at the same time, there was an improvement in the students' national board scores.

Slavin was so excited about the results that he shared what he learned with the administration of his daughter's high school in St. Louis where he served on the board. They listened but made no changes in their policy. He then went on to survey students at Irvington High School – in the Bay Area of California where he found that levels of anxiety and depression were higher among high school students than medical school students.

What were the causes of high school students' anxiety? Not surprisingly, the number one factor was the pressure to get into a prestigious college, followed by time pressure, pressure students put on themselves, pressure not to disappoint parents, fear about the amount of material students need to learn and competition.

Slavin believes the antidote lies in "cognitive restructuring," which involves changing the way students think and feel. He contends that "adolescents are filled with cognitive distortions," and that parents and teachers need to help them to change their emotional reactions to events. He emphasized mindfulness, reflection and resilience. According to Slavin, "Perfectionists have a much higher rate of anxiety and depression because they set the bar unrealistically high."

Stress-reducing tactics for the high school could include limits on the amount of homework, less testing and giving students time in school to study. Slavin also said parents should make sure their children get enough sleep and even permit them to miss a deadline if it gets in the way of sleep.

This talk was just one in a series to address student stress. On Wednesday April 6 at 7:30 pm, Vicki Abeles, who produced the movie "Race to Nowhere," and recently wrote "Beyond Measure" will speak at the Scarsdale Middle School about systemic stress, the obsession with achievement and the toll on student's well-being.