Ever since kindergarten, school has always been about learning and doing assignments to judge their knowledge on the subject and making sure students actually know the material. The teacher’s role has always been to teach the children, educating them on things that would be needed later on in life or things that have happened in the past to learn from them. Despite these goals set for teachers, many students have fallen behind both in understanding the basics and even the deep meanings in these lessons. Have you noticed how using AI (Artificial Intelligence) has become more frequent? Some may call those people lazy, but what exactly would compel that person to even have to use AI? Grades have started to become the foundation of school, making the learning factor no longer matter. Students are never asked what they learned, or asked how a test went and what grade they got. When you fail a test, the pressure of the grade is on you, not the teacher, even though the teacher is supposed to be teaching the material to the point where it is understood and the students can get a good grade on the topic. It feels like passing is the main point of school now.
School has become more of a day-to-day stress that fuels one’s anxiety, which is the opposite of what should happen. Students should come to school, excited to learn new things and confident that they will understand the material. Students used to take a survey every year about if they felt like they fit in, or felt like they knew the material and if they went to class to take a test they would get a good grade. Nowadays, it feels like it’s students against the education system; they don’t feel heard. Instead, they are ignored and pressured into finishing constant work. In the end, everything students do leads up to their future and where they will be after graduation, though the pressure and stress of all the assignments only lead to the long-term mental effects of the high expectations from everyone through a student’s view. If a student flunked, it would be difficult for them to get a job or even get into a college, to get a better education on a subject they are passionate about. Your whole life shouldn’t have to depend on your high school grades, instead it should depend on your skills and work ethic.
To make grades and assignments more complex, they have a due date. Due dates are responsible mainly to improve students’ punctuality and accountability for their future jobs, but assignments are being pushed to be completed the same day given, which creates more stress for students simply trying to complete their assignments, not giving their all when it comes to their work. Students have a life outside of school, making them not able to spend hours finishing assignments for many classes.. Teachers should consider that work is being given to students from multiple classes and focus more on the student’s skills rather than the grades they get on tests. During tests, students aren’t given the materials they would have in the work world, such as access to google and calculators, also giving you the limited time of an hour to 30 minutes. Tests are often the biggest percentage of your grade, so if you fail, you automatically get a bad grade on your overall grade. It is good to know the material without the help of google and calculator, but i think that students should still have access to help to double check answers and learn from their mistakes but also be able to get a good grade.
All of that work can build up into stress, along with the due dates.
I believe that instead of having required classes, the classes should be surrounded by your career path and pursuing that. Students often ask the question “When would we use this in the real world.” The answers are normally “if you were this..,” “if you were that..” Most chances are that it is not their career path and just take the class because it’s required and then later forget it because it is no longer needed due to their career. So, students’ stress over something that would mean nothing in the future
To solve the student stress, teachers should be flexible with the student depending on their situation, if they have a job, sports, after school activities, instead of the student making time and stressing about getting it done. Teachers should also allow the chance to get extra credit to make up for bad grades on tests or assignments.
