After coming back to school from winter break, it dawned on me that school genuinely is the source of most of my issues. It’s impossible to not worry about school. School is definitely the main stressor in my life, and has started to feel like survival of the fittest. The fight or flight mentality and being on edge makes it a lot harder to retain anything we are taught.

The pressure of grades towards your future

School pushes the idea that grades are the only way to measure your success. 

Ever since I was little, I have always been a perfectionist, meaning I strive for success. Since school defines good grades as being perfect and successful, I feel like I have failed myself if I don’t receive perfect grades, and when I am not able to maintain those perfect grades, I just add more and more pressure to myself. 

My parents value my grades, so they add their own kind of pressure to me. If I don’t maintain at least an A-B average, they believe that I am simply being lazy and don’t care about my grades.

Many students feel that their worth is tied to their GPA, and sometimes keeping a perfect GPA is just not sustainable when we have so many other things to worry about. I keep myself busy with extracurriculars I’m passionate about, but it’s often hard to figure out how to keep a healthy balance between school and my hobbies.

There is also the test taking aspect of school that drives me crazy. A person’s ability to take tests automatically measures their potential or skills. Tests create even more competition between kids at school.

The competitiveness of school is absolutely exhausting because no matter how hard I push myself, someone will always have a higher grade or a “better” answer. When I see that someone has gotten a higher grade than me on something, it makes me feel stupid even if I got a good overall grade. It’s like natural selection, where only the “best people” succeed by getting into a good college and being able to sustain their own life.

Almost everything comes down to college. Choosing the right college is a pivotal decision. It crucially affects your future. The constant need to be the best and stand out becomes severely overwhelming.

The second you move on to high school, pretty much every adult in your life practically expects you to know exactly what you want to do with your life. I have absolutely no clue what I want to do when I grow up, but with people at my age already talking about what they want to major in, it gets stressful being in that gray area.

Many colleges also expect you to know exactly what you want to do; when applying for them, you need to be able to state what you are planning to accomplish by going there. 

Social aspects

There is also the social part of school that can cause more problems within the day. There is the constant feeling that you have to act a certain way in all your classes. You can get mocked for pretty much anything at school, for example, if you ask too many questions, or if you don’t understand a topic automatically. 

Then there’s the teachers who urge you to ask questions, but when you do, they either don’t explain anything differently, or they just make you feel stupid for being confused and wanting help. This does not apply to every teacher, but the teachers like this substantially affect how students go about learning.

School starts at the crack of dawn. My brain cannot function at such an early time. With all the work given to us, mixed with after school commitments, it’s so hard to try to get to bed at a decent time. We as students are expected to be able to socialize and form proper thoughts before the sun even comes up. It’s like survival of the fittest because it feels like only the students who can function properly on little sleep are successful.

The impact school has on my mental health is honestly concerning. The constant need to excel in everything causes a detrimental spike in anxiety. The workload and the amount of time we are given to complete it all is in no way reasonable. It’s hard to not want to take a mental health day, but within that one day I pretty much miss an entire unit.

School has simply shifted from a place of learning to a place that makes me feel like I’m fighting for my life. It’s become clear to me that when the hunt for academic success comes at the big cost of someone’s mental health and genuine well being, the education system isn’t simply challenging the students, it’s draining them.