The stress surrounding high school students is in teenage terms, so real. The teenage years themselves are naturally a turbulent and confusing time, from trying to figure out one’s identity, first loves, and the obsession with “fitting in”. All that along with college-level AP classes, mounds of homework, and the race of getting into college, leaves many students exasperated.
If you don’t believe me, believe a survey from the American Psychological Association that states “nearly half of all teens — 45 percent — said they were stressed by school pressures.”
This number is extremely high and worrying, yet this number is even higher in highly academically competitive high schools. This is my experience and observations.
Attending an academically focused school is not all bad. Students are driven, ambitious, and excited to leave the high school realm and start succeeding. Many of them already have, with appearances in the newspaper, national recognitions, and a plethora of awards. This type of environment is the breeding ground for ambition and success. Instead of students worrying about their prom dress, they are worrying about their career and future; however, this focus has extreme drawbacks.
Asking what someone’s SAT score is like asking what someone’s weight is.
The more aggressive students go out of their way to keep tabs on all the other students or in their words “competition” whose success does not make them proud, but jealous. As if someone else’s success means the downfall of their own. Many students spend all their weekends studying and when they do go out, they spend half the time worrying about how they’ll get their homework done. Work rigor is unimaginable with everyone, starting from freshman, enrolling in college level classes. This rigor is often too much for people, with about 20 people from each class of about 70, transferring schools by the end of senior year. Crafting the perfect college application is stressed upon, with many students transforming into who they think colleges want, not who they actually are.
Probably the most worrying of all is that grades and test scores are meant as a representation of one’s intelligence. The top students snicker at low scores and loudly celebrate their own. People who ask questions in class are looked down upon as if they are too stupid to understand a concept. Getting an answer wrong in front of the class is embarrassing since no one is supposed to see you falter, even for a minute.
The teenage years are about exploring the world and yourself. It is about figuring out who you actually are and who actually want to be. It is about enjoying your youth and preparing for the future, simultaneously. This sort of environment, that many high school students experience, limits self-exploration, individuality, and creativity. It creates a mold students are expected to fit and creates unnecessary stress when it is not filled.
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