by Yaritza A. Velazquez
Do schools support students in their mental health? In my opinion, school is a place to gain knowledge. We are taught from a young age that school is a privilege and an opportunity we must hold on to, so we as individuals can be successful. The overwhelming pressure, a lot of times individuals struggle keeping up with due dates or learning at a certain pace. As a student, the reality is that people only highlight the “positive” things about the education system because it is our ticket to success, but unfortunately the negative parts of it are being buried and dismissed.
Schools become an educational Disneyland and a place where dreams become a reality; unfortunately, oftentimes the reality for some students is a dark tunnel with no light at the end of it. Between 2016 and 2020 drug abuse for 8th graders increased up to 61%. Equivalently, suicide rates among thirteen and fourteen year olds has doubled since 2008. On top of that, 50% of students come from broken homes (“Teen Drug Use”). For these reasons one in five teens, ages twelve to eighteen, suffer from at least one mental health disorder. Although the school has a choice whether or not to take students’ mental well-being into consideration, educational performance has declined and students have openly stated that mental health difficulties interfere with their studies. Despite these districts having counseling available to all students, their main goal is to point students in a direction that leads that individual to the school’s academic motives.
The education system’s intentions do not correspond to what you think about when speaking of mental health issues. In addition, students are only given that attention when their struggles become harmful. For example, in my personal experience, my school only began enforcing strict rules and talking about mental health because a young girl overdosed in the restroom: but is that how far students really have to go for them to get the help they need? In certain cases schools only choose to pick one battle to confront. When looking at something like a dress code, many schools have ensured that individuals, mainly girls, are dressed in a manner that is not distracting. On the other hand though, I know a handful of schools that do not react like that when it comes to bullying.
Mental health is deeply wounded when it comes to self esteem being beaten up. A study done at Yale stated that bully victims are between two to nine times more likely to consider suicide (“Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents Doubled in 10 Years”). Furthermore, school shooters are often linked to having a history of being bullied (“Bullying and Suicide”). Parents at home are wondering why their kid comes home everyday exhausted and with no energy if they as adults work even harder. Teachers are wondering why students do not do their work, and students are wondering how they’re gonna push through another day. Mental health is simply not something you can put on hold until it’s convenient. People everyday fight their battles silently and pray that they can at least hold on a little bit longer. Yet, our education system’s top priority is ensuring that from the outside looking in they seem like a well balanced, and well put together school that cares about students’ well being.
Knowing the statistics and researching suicide rates, substance abuse, and more should be enough for schools to take the lead and give their students an outlet to get the help they need. Unfortunately schools are faced with a challenge that they as a whole do not have the time, resources, and training to provide students with the correct solutions. Should schools be enforcing this norm to be changed? If schools provided outlets for students to get the help they need, academic performances would increase and individuals would get more motivation to achieve better grades. However, up until this point everything that is good has declined while everything bad has risen up. Until an initiative is taken, the longer our education is disrupted. This takes me back to my initial question; are schools supporting their students in mental health? Without the proper training or resources, there is nothing being done at schools that has made a fairly large impact and/or that has helped students with their mental wellbeing. So until schools make the impact students need to help them and their mental health, we must wait and take Tupac’s advice to keep our heads up.
References
“Bullying and Suicide.” BullyingStatistics.org. Accessed 30 October 2023. http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-and-suicide.html.
“Teen Drug Use.” DrugAbuseStatistics.org, [Access Date], https://drugabusestatistics.org/teen-drug-use/.
“Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents Doubled in 10 Years.” U.S. News & World Report, 1 May 2023, https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-05-01/suicide-rates-among-u-s-adolescents-doubled-in-10-years.
The post Mental Health In Schools appeared first on Great Education Colorado.
