Why does school: exist, start so early, make me sad, cause depression, make me so tired, and make me cry. These are the auto-complete suggestions in Google when you type in “why does school…”

Students are under so much pressure from the school system in today’s society, yet they aren’t even given the proper tools to deal with this pressure. The pressure is caused by the amount of school work, fear of failure, and sometimes even a lack of communication between student and teacher.

All around, school makes students feel stressed and tired all the time. Teachers assign massive amounts of homework that don’t have the best instructions to go along with them. This many causes students to leave assignments until the last minute due to the stress of not truly knowing what they’re doing, causing a larger amount of stress as the deadlines draw closer.

Along with the amount of homework, students do not always feel comfortable asking their teachers for help, fearing that they will be addressed as stupid and/or less than. Many students have been told in the past that they should figure out the assignments for themselves, or they should have been paying more attention when they were explaining the assignment. In actuality, the student really does just need help—and it’s the teacher’s job to help them..

There is also the fact that students in honors classes or on the AP track are often praised for doing well. While in the ‘regular’ level classes kids are often told to work toward where the honors and AP students stand. Pitting students against their counterparts can affect how students see their personal value. Leaving many students with a mindset that if they are not the best in the class, they are not enough, and they have failed.

Though, students on the honors and AP track are not exempt from feeling this immense pressure to succeed. These students are also held to a high standard that some students even end up deeming “unachievable.” Some do not even receive the help they need because they are scared to ask for help understanding the content due to the fact they view accepting help with the negative connotation of not being good enough.

Many MCHS students feel free to express themselves at their school. Students have a very wide variety of clubs to choose from, giving almost every person an outlet from the stress that they can feel due to school no matter their interests. They also feel that they have the right tools and classes to help them succeed at doing what they want to pursue after high school is over. Students are able to take hands-on classes, and classes that will even possibly give them credit toward college. Though the school allows them to pursue what they wish to and explore many of the options that are available to them, this doesn’t make school any less stressful.

Previous failures, especially academically, are very hard to bounce back from. When a single test can determine where you go to college, can make or break whether or not you can do a club, or determines your grade for the whole semester it puts massive amounts of pressure on students. Though, everyone is bound to have failulars and should be taught how to deal with them properly, not in self destructive ways.