2024 Mental Health Essay Contest Awardee: Honorable Mention
Accountability for Authority: The Responsibilities of Schools
Agaana, Maryland
In my ninth-grade health class, we had a unit solely about mental illnesses and we each chose a mental illness to make a slideshow about. From the list, one of them stood out to me: generalized anxiety disorder. I was a relatively extroverted kid throughout my childhood and had no trouble making friends. Then, with the start of middle school, I suddenly felt a new feeling. Anxiety plagued me, changing me into a completely different, withdrawn person. I hadn’t even realized I had anxiety or had someone to talk to about it until the feeling became too much to bear in eighth grade. People shouldn’t have to struggle without even knowing the issue they are facing.
Schools have and are making progress toward teaching students about mental illness and health. In my school, mandatory health classes cover topics such as identifying and addressing poor mental health, and clubs have taken place to provide students with a safe space. Schools should continue to promote this coverage because poor mental health among teens is an essential matter to address. Approximately 37% of high school students in the U.S. suffer from mental health issues.
In addition to teens having to struggle with their difficult emotions and thoughts, poor mental health plays a part in the future of teens. It can lead to falling grades, which may impact their ability to follow their academic goals. It can also impact long-term behaviors and habits that can be hard to break, such as drug and alcohol addiction. Schools must address mental health issues among teens because of how school largely influences these issues.
School influences students and their mental health in many different ways. Some teens’ mental health issues can be directly rooted in academics and getting good grades. Students tend to feel much pressure from external and internal forces to achieve academic success. Parents may inflict pressure upon their kids to get good grades for numerous reasons, such as for the kids to have good opportunities for future academics/employment or for pride that the parents can express to others. This can make a student feel like their worth only comes from academic success, leading to poor mental health. Students can also feel like this under self-inflicted pressure. From my experience, the tie between self-worth and academic success seems to have been ingrained in my mind throughout childhood because of the praise that came with good grades. To combat this, schools need to promote clubs about hobbies and self-care. In addition, there could be safe spaces within the school for students to de-stress with permission from teachers for short periods during classes, between classes, or even during lunch.
Students can also suffer from matters within the school that don’t relate to academics, such as bullying or fitting in with peers. Although anti-bullying initiatives have improved, bullying still occurs. It can transpire between peers or even friends in obvious or subtle ways, depending on the situation. Adult figures to communicate with are essential in trying to resolve these issues. Students may not speak out for fear of the consequences of their bully finding out they told an adult. A trustworthy adult needs to listen to the student and proceed in the way the student thinks is best, but also offer support and solutions when needed. Support also needs to be provided to students who feel excluded in school. Oftentimes, this help can be provided through a counselor. I think that schools could offer more funding for counseling in ways such as more available resources in-person and even online. An alternative solution could be to create a student-led committee that communicates with other students entirely anonymously online. This can be done through a site with moderating bots to prevent the usage of names of students from both sides. I think this could be helpful because teens may feel more validated and understood by others their age who are going through similar experiences. It could also be an outlet for students to share the knowledge they’ve accumulated about mental health.
In addition, teens can struggle because of the general pressure that school puts on students to balance while taking care of other aspects of their lives. Naturally, many teens feel that it is difficult to maintain academics along with sports, hobbies, clubs, work, social lives, home lives, and more possible aspects of their lives. This often leads to immense stress. In my school, there is a student enrichment time (S.E.T.) initiative in which students have about 30 minutes to work on whatever they have to do, similar to a study hall. I find this particularly beneficial because it is hard to find time to do homework and study outside of school when there are so many more things to balance. I think that study hall time could be integrated within classes, such as at the beginning and/or end of class. That way, students can do homework, study, or do anything they need to catch up on. Therefore, the stress on students would be reduced.
Discussing symptoms of mental health issues and providing teens with resources to help them cope with their specific issues is integral to improving their mental health. Schools hold a great responsibility to do this because of how much they contribute to a student’s mental health. This can be because of academics, the school’s social situation, and the pressure of balancing school with matters outside of school. I sincerely believe that schools have made great strides in identifying how important mental health is, and I hope greater improvements are made to help teens in both the present and the future.
NIH recognizes these talented essay winners for their thoughtfulness and creativity in addressing youth mental health. These essays are written in the students' own words, are unedited, and do not necessarily represent the views of NIH, HHS, or the federal government.
Page published May 31, 2024
