Does School Actually Affect Your Mental Health?

By Analia Garcia

     Many students feel academic pressure from school, and some develop mental health problems. When teachers assign lots of things at once, students can feel stressed out from that. They think, “I have to do this one, but I have another and I forgot to make it up.”

     All of those things can build academic stress and pressure, causing mental health problems. According to Mountain Heights Academy, kids can feel very pressured at basic school work because of the amount. Some students feel so pressured from everything that they take mental health days. A ninth grader, Fernan, at Benicia High says that she also takes mental health days. Students can also develop self harm issues and eating disorders because of their mental health issues. Other students will potentially switch to online school because of bullying, academic performance, and pressure.

     Academic performance is difficult for students to understand. You might think it’s just a normal test, when in reality, a simple test can determine your future. For example, if you did badly on tests throughout the school year, you can potentially be placed in a class lower than your previous one, which puts lots of stress on students to maintain their grades and stay in harder classes.

     If the assignments weren’t enough, students can also get bullied. This can be based on how they look, their height, their body, or their clothes.This puts mental health issues into kids minds 24/7. Say, if you wanted to wear your favorite t-shirt, but you’re worried if kids will make fun of it, that makes you second guess about what you want to wear. That’s why some kids would not want to go to school at all because of the bullying, which causes mental health problems.

     Sometimes schools will have students do social activities, which is good, but some students have really bad social anxiety that can make them want to go home or online. An Example of this is schools will have events like homecoming or presentations, and students with social anxiety will not want to go in front of other students. Kids can find that very uncomfortable since they already have social anxiety, and they don’t want to embarrass themselves.