Even though school is supposed to help us in life, why does it leave students exhausted and overwhelmed with work? Many factors that affect students include academic pressure, school environments, too much work, responsibilities, and more. However, many adults don’t realize that a student’s mental well-being can result in depression, anxiety, and stress.
One of the biggest causes of stress among students is academic pressure. Many students face pressure to be the best in school, to get good grades, to succeed on homework, and to do well on tests or finals.
In addition to academic pressure, the school environment may sometimes be overwhelming. Many students may be forced to balance school with jobs that help their families, leaving them unable to complete their work; they may also be balancing sports and family responsibilities.
To better understand how school pressure can affect students, I have interviewed several people to show their experiences.
Alizae Perez is a junior in Pasco, she shared how academic pressure affects her daily life, “I feel like I do, I feel like it comes from my parents pressuring me to get good grades and having my GPA at a high point.” she said. This shows how a lot of pressure comes from parents, teachers, and other students. It can begin at home and follow the student into school, making them believe grades are more important.
Another interviewee is Maria Godinez, she is a junior in Pasco, and when I asked her about some “red flags” teachers mistake for being lazy or having a bad attitude she responded, “When you fall asleep during class”, many teachers think it’s a bad thing to sleep in class but they might not realize that leaving too much homework can make kids stay up late at night and have an impact on them.
Ruth Patricio is a college student. “I do think when it comes to students starting to apply to schools. There might be a lot of pressure from parents, like, ” Oh, you need to have good grades because you need to get into this particular school. And some students might pressure themselves a lot and be stressed, like, if I don’t get accepted into this certain college or university, I’m going to disappoint my parents, and then it gets stressful for them.”
Kylie Gallacher is a teacher at Pasco whom I interviewed. “I think that when students equate their self-worth to the numbers assigned to them from school, it is probably where it starts to become harmful. Where it’s like, I only deserve good things based on if I have good grades or not.” This explains why so many students feel that grades matter more, and why that can be more harmful than helpful.
As we know, adults may not realize the pressure students face because they didn’t grow up with the same pressures and may have different experiences. Mental health wasn’t talked about as much as it is now, which means that stress is often normalized, and people don’t pay as much attention to it as they should.
Many students are affected by academic pressure, school environment, too much work, responsibilities, sports and etc. even though some teachers may not realize such a struggle, something that teachers can change is not assigning homework but instead work to do in class, and if not finished have work days to get everything completed. Teachers can check in on students and ask how they are, or just try to understand.
In my opinion, school affects students by making them believe they need to be good at school and earn good grades. I used to think that if I didn’t have good grades, I would not be successful, and instead, it took a huge toll on my mental health. That’s how I think school affects your mental health.
