ES 1.2 - Task 1: Student Stress

• To what extent was your school adapted to your needs as a teenager (in terms of schedule, autonomy, choices, learning with your peers…)?

• Would you define school as a stressful period? Why and why not? If you said yes, how could stress be reduced?

My school schedule was good for teenagers because we had lessons from Monday to Saturday, from 8am to 1pm. The lessons were each one hour long, for a total amount of five subjects a day. This theoretically gave us the time to do our homework in the afternoons, but also sports and other activities, such as taking music lessons. The only problem was the workload, which mainly depended on the teachers: in fact, after the third year of high school, I had to quit both my sports activities and singing lessons, because I could not keep up with the amount of homework and the private lessons I had to take, as my maths teacher was not willing to explain things twice, when someone did not understand them the first time. This is very sad and demotivating for teenagers, because despite doing their best, they are still most likely going to fail at something, whether it is a subject or one of their passions. Therefore, this whole situation was extremely stressful, as no matter how many hours a day I studied (and most times I would spend up to 12 hours a day sitting at my desk, plus the 5 hours at school), there was always a subject that I would likely fail, because there was not enough time to equally prepare for all the five subjects we had in one day. The stress came from our personal ambitions, from our parents, from the teachers, but nobody seemed to understand how much we were being asked from and we constantly felt like failures. I was lucky enough, as after quitting all my extra curricular activities, due to the fact that I had 5 insufficient subjects 6 months before the end of the school year, my dad helped me studying every day after work, until I managed to pass the year with no failing grades at all. Some of my school mates were not as lucky as me, as their parents were not able to help them. This resulted in them having to go to school in summer and give exams in September, or —for the least lucky ones— to re-do the whole school year, becoming the talk of the school and giving a bad first impression to the new teachers, who would have prejudices and give them bad marks before even giving them a chance to prove themselves.

This made it even more stressful than it already was for them, resulting in some people with good potential to drop out of school at the age of 16.

This stressful situation could have been resolved simply by looking at the whole picture and acting consequently: that is, the teachers trying to understand how much homework we had for all of the subjects every single day and all agreeing on giving us a bit less for each subject, in order to give us the chance to succeed in all of them without having to give up on all the rest.

• How can school and teachers support adolescents in that phase of their lives (you can think of what you would have liked to benefit from as a teenager)?

Schools should first of all have students fill out two surveys a year for every teacher and, if needed, hire someone —like a sort of mystery client— to check on the effectiveness of the teaching method and on the rapport teachers have with students. All this to ensure that students are being treated fairly and are not being overloaded with work. This does not mean that teachers who do not get a good result in the survey should be fired, but they should get a warning that if things do not start to change right away, then there will be consequences.

Moreover, each and every school should provide a free psychologist for students. My school did it and it was extremely helpful for many of us students and I am absolutely certain that this is a service worth investing some school money in, no matter how many financial problems a school may have. This should be something that is considered as important as having a teacher per subject. As importantly as this, every school should have a nurse as well. In every school I have attended, there were only janitors, who would give us a bag of ice for any problem we might have had, even mental health problems. A nurse is necessary not only in situations of emergency, but also to assist students with minor things such as relieving a head ache or period cramps. And this is something that most schools lack, at least from what I have experienced in these 18 years of studies in school and university.