The Problem with Public School
Most every day of a child’s life revolves around their education. They wake up when it is still dark outside, pack their backpacks filled with books and binders, and head off to work for 8 hours. After work, they return home to complete the additional tasks assigned to them in their free time, often taking up yet another two hours of their day. After the children study for tests, work on their projects, and finish all their homework, they later have a nightmare of their teacher chewing them out for forgetting something. They wake up the next morning when it is still dark outside, and the cycle repeats.
Yes, it’s just another day for that 13 year old child.
School has only been getting more stressful as years go on. With the increasing pressure in the job market, the competition among children which only grows each year, and children in middle school already panicking over college, it is clear that something needs to change.
Joy Holt, a school counselor in Arkansas, mentions the variety of disturbing things she’s seen from younger children in recent years.
Young kids are terrified of failing the standardized tests now emphasized heavily during the school year, she says.
“Even the little ones, they know how important [testing] is, and they don’t want to fail,” Holt says. “They cry. They get sick. Students have actually thrown up on their test booklets.”
Children as young as 8 years old are so terrified of school they are actually entering fight or flight, a physiological phenomenon which occurs when the body is under extreme stress and/or perceives a threat. And, why wouldn’t they? A child’s life is so fast paced that they can only focus on defending themselves from the threat: they believe everything is going too fast for them to take the time to deal with it without suffering consequences.
Holt goes on to criticize that school boards, teachers, and parents have forgotten that they are dealing with children. Children who are pushed to be overachievers may forget this, themselves.
“Kids are so consistently worried about keeping up with ‘what’s next’ and ‘what’s next,’ that it’s hard to sit down and say, ‘Wow, I’m stressed out. Let’s find out why.’”
But the stress isn’t limited just to school buildings, no. Where schoolwork follows, so does stress. Children are getting less than 6 hours of sleep as opposed to the required 9.5 hours. They’re also reported to often go without sleep to finish work. College students as well, as early as their first year, will skip sleeping in favor of working.
Now, that is it’s own problem. That pain can be temporary. But what is the most terrifying is not the child breaking down crying over their test results, it’s not children working until one in the morning and waking up for school at 6–Its the startling increase of mental health issues in our youth.
Depression and anxiety have more than doubled from 1995 to 2011, and with other factors occurring like the pressure for extracurricular activities on top of academic pursuits, it shows no sign of stopping.
In the face of these issues, what should be done? What can be done? Now two separate generations in both elementary and college levels of education are hurling themselves into an inevitably catastrophic mess. Millennials are already facing the hideous brunt of it, and elementary and middle students have only begun to discover the idea of academic stress and its physical and psychological effects. America’s youth is speeding for disaster, and the sharp-cutting blades of academic stress just may have cut the brakes.
