By AJ Rodriguez ’23 (Journalism)
Students and teachers can easily feel stressed or overwhelmed throughout the school year. Whether it is stress within the classroom or outside of it, students and teachers can struggle to be successful.
Students face stressors in school and outside of it on a daily basis. It is important to highlight some of the problems that students in all grades face today.
According to the University of St. Andrews, stressors for students could include:
- Exams / Studying
- Poor time management
- Difficulties in personal and family life
- Balancing academics and extracurricular activities
- Mental health problems
According to Finance Online, 61% of students feel pressured to do well on exams. Students could spend hours studying for exams, staying up late and not paying attention to other classes in order to do well. This can easily stress a student out, especially if they struggle in the class. If a student does not do well they feel that it will be impossible for them to bring their grade back up. If they do well then the stress just continues to the next test. “…I always feel like I require more time to study,… it creates extremely high levels of anxiety and immense feelings of “I can’t do this,” at times,” says Don Bosco Prep Student Will Stiehl (‘23).
Poor time management can create a lot of problems for students. Many students wait until the last minute in order to complete assignments, they procrastinate for days, weeks or even months before they attempt to complete them. DBP Guidance counselor Mr. Song says, “A student affected by poor time management is more likely to have increased stress due to missed assignments, poor test grades, reduced sleep, increased feelings of anxiety/fatigue, and irritability just to name a few factors.”
Unfortunately students may struggle in school because of problems at home, including problems with their family, friends, or other relationships. These outside factors could easily affect the productivity in the classroom. If students have to focus their attention on things outside of school it takes away from how much they can focus in school.
Many students take part in a multitude of extracurriculars after school which can easily cause stress within students. Whether it be athletics, theater or robotics these after school activities can be a lot to manage. Dominic Romero (‘23) says, “Rehearsal starts around 3:30-7:00, after which I have to take the 7:15 [train], and do not get home until around 9:00. ” These schedules can be a lot for a student to manage alongside homework. Students could easily feel overwhelmed if they feel that they do not have enough time in a day to get everything they need to do. Not only do these students need to remain successful in school, but they must remain successful in their activities at the same time.
Students may also experience a lot of mental health problems such as anxiety and depression that can cause their grades to drop, and in turn cause stress. Depression can cause students to not want to get out of bed, and make them lose their focus on school. Anxiety can affect student performance on tests, or even cause them to not submit assignments out of fear of failure. Feelings of anxiety can happen to anybody, Richard Black (‘23) says, “Before most tests I feel nervous energy and anxiety build up regardless of the class.”
It is important to highlight the stressors that our teachers have to deal with as well as the students. Our teachers face very similar challenges and feel a lot of the same emotions as students as well
According to the TALIS, stressors for teachers could include:
- Having to many classes
- Not enough time for lesson preparation
- Having too many assignments to grade
- Difficulties outside of school
Due to a shortage of teachers throughout the entire country, remaining teachers may need to teach more classes than they had to in the past. Teachers could have upwards of 6 classes, depending on how many periods a school has. “If a teacher has 6 classes, that can equate to having 120-150 students,” according to Mr. Song. The stress of having so many classes, with so many students and a sense of so little time can overwhelm teachers. This is also putting off a lot of college students from wanting to become teachers.
With the increased number of classes, this means that there is less time for teachers to prepare. In the past teachers would have at least a period in order to prepare for the next day. Mr. Song says, “…teachers have to create lesson plans, update curriculums, and create assessments in addition to grading.”
More classes and more students can create a large number of assignments for teachers to grade. This can cause stress for teachers trying to make sure they give their students their grades without too much delay. “Sometimes, students and parents can be very demanding and expect immediate results” according to Mr. Song.
Although we only see teachers in school, teachers have responsibilities outside of school that they need to handle. Many teachers have children that they need to take care of, so once they finish their job as teacher they start their second job as parent. Teachers could also help with coaching sports teams which takes up a lot of time. Additionally, teachers might have to take up a second job after school so once they finish school they go there for the afternoon.
Solutions:
- Speak with school administration, staff and teachers
- Speak with therapist outside of school
One of the best solutions for both students and teachers is to speak with the school’s administration, staff and teachers. If a student is struggling in a certain class they can go to their teachers for extra help or go to administration to see if they can be given a tutor. If there are problems at home or mental health concerns than you are able to tell the administration and they will work with you in order to help you continue to succeed. Teachers who feel they need more time are able to speak with their administration and figure out solutions that will allow them the time they need. The administration in schools will work with both the students and teachers to ensure their success
If there are other problems that schools cannot fix, then one of the best solutions is to attend therapy. Therapy allows a person to fully express all the emotions and problems they may be facing in a safe space. By doing so they can work with a therapist to create solutions that truly work. Whether it be bad time management, depression or anxiety a therapist will work with you to help combat these problems. Therapy can help further a student and teachers success in the classroom by slowly eliminating problems outside of it.