Did you ever experience a time when you felt stressed at school and it made it hard to focus? Most people know being a teenager isn’t the easiest and stress is a big factor that occurs in students. The stress from school impacts students of all ages and backgrounds. Stress can come from a variety of sources including, personal pressure to do well, social anxiety, assignments and homework as reported by foundation.org. These sources can all impact their education and staying in school. Previous research indicates that academic related stress can reduce academic achievement, decrease motivation and increase the risk of school dropout. Keeping students’ with  little homework and understanding teachers will help with reducing stress in students, leading to improved mental health and successful lives for students. 

Sources of a SPASH Student being Stressed

  Starting strong with, An interview I had with Kenadee Bailey, a senior at SPASH. We discussed that she recently felt stressed in journalism because of it being a fast paced class and causing her to be overwhelmed. With classes being fast-paced it’s hard to understand and leads to no keeping up in the class and Kenadee said it has been a struggle to get assignments done by the due date. Along with her feeling very stressed not only because of school but from her job. Which doesn’t help the already added stress from school because of the fast paced class.  The homework, with the speed it needs to be done and making sure she meets the criteria of all assignments she is given is what causes her stress. Kenadee feels she would fully understand this class if the teacher slowed down to help the whole class or individuals understand what we’re learning. It is stated that talking to adults at school about how she feels does not help with her stress. With teachers answering emails and trying to understand students would help immensely with stress at school. 

Sources of why SPASH students are Stressed 

Going on to, the survey that I created had a total of 41 responses from SPASH students showing why students are feeling stressed at school. The results showed that the top 3 stressors for students at school are falling behind on assignments, grades and homework. Students being stressed does not help give them motivation and can make it harder for them to do their work and can actually take more time getting assignments done rather than actually learning. The resources students use to help with stress at school are listening to music and communicating with a psychologist, counselor or a teacher. 

Although these coping mechanisms don’t always help, like when there are other stressful factors for students. Such as dealing with their mental and emotional state along with being tired, can really influence one’s mood. All these factors depend on each other in some way so when school is stressful all can be affected. A response from an anonymous SPASH student stated “I have been very stressed recently because there is so much I have to do in a day and so little time to do it because of school. Between going to school for 8 hours a day, working for 3 and then sometimes doing homework for 3+ hours, it leaves rarely any time for any things that I may do outside of school whether it’s hobbies, chores, or even studying for tests”. This shows that there is a good amount of students here at SPASH that feel school adds too much stress to their life. When we should be receiving the learning we need and not extra stress, it makes you question if the homework given is really helping or if it should be reduced. 

How Stress Affects SPASH Students 

Lastly, The stress of high school for students and even parents has shown to lead to increased mental health issues. Nearly 4 in 10 parents of high school students say their child experienced a lot of stress. Luckily, here at SPASH us students do have counseling resources along with others, to comfort, help and work with students while going through mental health issues.Continuing, Parents overall cited grades and homework as stressors more often than any other school-related issues, such as getting along with teachers, other students, bullying, or violence. This information shows how student stress and mental health is affected by having loads of homework and uninvolved teachers in school. Which proves that if we can improve the amount of homework given, the help given on tests and the communication with teachers and or counselors can help the mental health of SPASH students greatly improve. 

Help with Student Stress at SPASH 

To wrap up this article, the importance of managing stress within SPASH students is much more than just the grades we get here and our homework. The importance is the improvement of our mental health, the improvement of really learning what we are taught along with grades, GPA and staying caught up on assignments.  We should help any student in the future that could potentially be struggling on a daily basis from stress, with possibly reducing homework load, better communication from teachers resulting in a possible improvement of mental health.  This can be helpful to remind all SPASH students to not be afraid to use their resources and to always ask for help.