School is supposed to be a place to learn and prepare students for the future. It should make students feel ready for whatever is coming next. In my opinion, some aspects of school are doing more harm than good. What I mean by this is that school can often take a negative toll on certain students.

My first concern is the amount of school work and homework. In my opinion, it is not always distributed in a practical way. Many teachers seem to assign a significant amount of  assignments at once and expect the students to be able to balance this. I think that the teachers need to take into consideration how much time an assignment will take a student, instead of layering many at once. Due dates get confusing and stressful.

Another cause of major stress at school is tests and quizzes. There have been too many times where I studied and prepared myself for a test using a review that was given to us, only to find that the test barely had any of the topics that were covered on our study materials. Not only are we not always fully prepared with the right study materials, but it is extremely frustrating when we are assigned a big assignment that overlaps with the days right before a test, which should be devoted to specifically studying.

Next, I am aware that this isn’t necessarily an excuse, but most students have other commitments and after school activities. This can make it very hard to balance multiple assignments, while preparing for any upcoming quizzes and tests.

The main point that I am trying to get at, is that students can only handle so much schoolwork at once in order to have it done with a quality effort.

Something that definitely causes stress in the classroom is presentations. I wish teachers would understand that there are many students that have major anxiety in situations like this. It isn’t always someone just being ‘shy’. Also, students don’t always necessarily learn from other students’ presentations because they are too busy stressing about when their turn is coming. In my opinion, teachers should also stop putting students on the spot so often. If a student does not have their hand up, they do not know the answer, so teachers should stop expecting them to explain something in front of the class that they clearly do not know.

Stress is not something to be taken like a grain of salt. It can cause many problems for people. Obviously, it affects some students more than others, including me. This school year so far has definitely brought forth a big amount of stress on my part, trying to balance work and extracurricular activities, while taking care of myself emotionally. Whenever I am very stressed due to school work, it definitely affects my happiness and takes a toll on me.

Considering the teachers thoughts on this topic, I understand that they are just trying to make sure that we can handle big amounts of work for the future, and they just want us to effectively learn the content that we need to learn. I want them to understand though, that piling work on us does not necessarily help us learn the content. For me personally, I can learn better when I do not feel cluttered and overworked. In that case, I am too busy worrying about getting everything done and passing, to really understand the topics.

I think that this issue can be easily solved. Teachers should simply cut back on the amount of homework, or make sure that whenever they plan assignments and tests, that dates are organized in an effective way.

There are many ways that school is a stressful environment. These issues can be easily fixed, but first, teachers need to recognize the problems.