SSSAS is a rigorous and demanding school, which all of our students know all too well. When you add sports, clubs, college applications, jobs, and friend and family obligations to the academic life of an SSSAS student, many people become overwhelmed and stressed out, especially at this time of year due to college applications and hectic schedules. As we know, many teenagers experience stress, anxiety, and depression. Unfortunately, stress is often high in a college preparatory school, such as our own, and anxiety is high as students race to meet deadlines and achieve the best grades possible.
Our school environment can often feel like a constant competition, and our student feedback shows that. After going to a conference in October with Challenge Success regarding well-being and mental health in students, I became inspired by a project known as the “I Wish Campaign.” The campaign addresses three different topics (I wish my parents knew…, I wish my teachers knew…, and I wish my peers knew…). I sent out a poll to the US student body asking for feedback about mental health in our school, and here are some of the many responses that I received from these three prompts.
I wish my teachers…
- understood how much my self worth is attached to my grades
- knew how much time I spend on my homework every night, and how I give up doing other things (sports, family time, personal time, fun stuff) so I can do well in the classroom. I wish they knew how much effort I put into my classes when I’m at home.
- understood how much work I have in other classes.
- knew how hard I work
- knew how stressed we are about grades and the outcomes
- realized that I’m taking 6 other classes and can therefore have 6 other hours of homework
- went into deeper explanations of things
- knew how much stress highschool puts on students and changes their plans to accommodate the mental health of their students
- communicated more about when we have tests so we aren’t too overbooked. I also wish they told us about big assessments sooner because i’ve been stressed the whole weekend
I wish my parents…
- saw me for something more than my accomplishments.
- understood how much pressure I put on myself and how their added ‘support’ makes me. mental state worse, or how I have some sort of eating disorder that developed in 7th grade that I’m also trying to sort out.
- knew how much I helped around the house without them noticing.
- knew how much I care about sports even if I’m not the best on the team.
- were more understanding about grades
- understood I’m already burned out.
- understood my perspective, understood what i’m going through right now
- wouldn’t pressure me to do things well to the point where I feel like I’m forcing and dragging myself to do it.
- would realize they may not relate to or understand every problem that I encounter
- knew how hard is it for me to be motivated
I wish my peers…
- knew that I’m not all sunshine, that I am hurting too.
- were nicer
- understood that their words hurt.
- welcome new students into their friend groups instead of being super established
- didn’t judge me for how I look and talk
- Recognized how hard I work
- let me know how they feel so I can help them in the best way possible
- understood that sometimes I just want to be acknowledged
- understood that you can’t be perfect at everything
On top of asking students the wish prompts, I asked them a series of questions. When asked about cheating, which is often influenced by anxiety and stress, students created this list of reasons for why they cheated, if they have before:
- anxiety and panic attacks
- overwhelmed with work, lack of time, and the assignment was extremely confusing
- I feel as though I am unsure as to what extent my studying should be. Resulting in me feeling like I need to glance somewhere else to reassure myself
- overwhelmed with work, and stressed on the answer
- I was gonna fail
- skipped doing an assignment due to sports going late.
- I didn’t have time
Now, possibly the most important question of all, “What is something our school could do or change to improve your well being or mental health?” This question addressed ways that our administration and teachers can take action to help the student body improve its overall happiness and wellbeing. Some of the answers included:
- have a common place that people feel like is safe to just cry, talk, or anything they want.
- make less important homework optional and give us the occasional ‘lazy day’ of a more go-at-your-own-pace day at home when your teachers assign you some work to do at home, like we did on zoom.
- I think that sports are a huge stress factor at our school. There’s enormous pressure to do well in sports at our school that I’m not used to coming from a different school in the past. I think that we take sports a little too seriously at this school and the mindset around sports needs to change to make physical fitness more about sportsmanship and work ethics and less about this is a requirement and your expected to show up everyday ready to give everything you have, especially after a full day of school and homework that’s waiting to get done.
- mental health days.
- Teachers could be more gracious in extensions and more forgiving especially with the play and musical during tech and show week.
- lower our homework load. Of course, taking 5+ AP classes is going to be a lot of work, but there’s really no excuse for one singular class to be assigning 2+ hours of homework per night.
- Bring back the required ten minute break during class! It was required after the schedule change and over the years, the break has disappeared.
- have our teachers reassure us of the assignments and make its organization as easy as possible to improve stress and anxiety.
Last thoughts from students:
- Something that contributes greatly is the lack of sleep I get along with my ADHD and anxiety.
- It’s not easy for some to come forward.
- The mentality of grades at our school is completely disproportionate to other school communities and students in general. At our school, a C is treated like an F and an A is never good enough.
- Teachers don’t realize how stressed a lot of the students are.
- Do we have to have a reason to do fun things? Why can’t we just plan fun things to give students a break. And let’s stop being so hard on students and making their lives more difficult.
After asking students for their feedback, I interviewed Mrs. Harrison, the upper school mental health counselor at SSSAS. I asked her a series of questions to get her opinion and advice on student well-being.
What is something that you wish the students of SSSAS knew?
“Their path doesn’t have to be linear in terms of success, and that there are many different ways to find success, and it doesn’t necessarily equate to a top tier university or college. And that there are many different schools out there, your worth isn’t dependent on things like grades.”
What is something that you wish the teachers of SSSAS knew?
“I wish teachers knew how much pressure kids put on themselves to perform in all the different places that they feel they have to perform, and how much stress they’re under academically. And how much that accumulates to where they lose sleep, and can lose the joy of being a high school student”
What is something that you wish the parents of SSSAS knew?
“I wish parents would know the same thing that I wish kids to know, that the journey at SSSAS where we want to focus on our mission of goodness as well as knowledge, doesn’t have to be a linear journey. People are not perfect. They make mistakes and are not always going to get the A, and that’s okay.”
What advice do you have for struggling students?
“Seek out your resources. There are so many different people who care about you and want to help. Whether it’s your parents, whether it’s other family members, whether it’s counselors, or chaplains or advisers or coaches…everybody here wants to help, so don’t stay silent.”
What changes do you think need to be made to improve the well being of our students at SSSAS?
“Less of a focus on the things that seem to be what people are hanging their worth on, whether that is being a superstar athlete or getting all A’s or they’ve got a great SAT score. I think that those are the kinds of measures of performance that people believe mean everything. I’m not saying they’re not important, but they don’t mean everything.”
How do you think the college process plays a role in the student’s mental health here?
“The desire to get into selective institutions of course has an impact on mental health… students may compare themselves to siblings or to other people in their grade. There’s a sense of competition at times that can have an impact on mental health.”
Anything else you would like to add relating to student mental health and well being at SSSAS?
“My door is always open. You can easily make an appointment by clicking on My Calendly link, which you can find in the signature of my email. If you are struggling, I want to help!”
We recognize that this is a college preparatory school, and many people will try to argue that this is what students need to do to get into a top college, but is it worth jeopardizing our students’ mental health? Why not add in a few mental health days, breaks throughout the day, or even a homework free weekend every month. By prioritizing learning and experiences above grades and numerical worth, our students will be able to get more sleep, be less stressed, and overall have a more positive high school experience. What do you wish for the future of SSSAS and our students?
