It’s 10 p.m. You just got home from cheering at a home basketball game and you still have English homework. You’re hungry, tired, your head hurts, and you still need to take a shower. The last thing you want to do is sit at your desk for hours and do your homework. Many high school students have high amounts of pressure placed on them from academics, extracurricular activities, friendships, jobs, and more. Balancing school, relationships, and other things at a young age is very stressful and causes feelings of burnout as well as a huge impact on mental health.
I am one of these students who feel burnt out. I am a student-athlete who takes my sport and grades very seriously, and my performance in both impacts me profoundly. I have homework every night that I struggle to complete because I am so tired and just want a break, but I don’t get much of a break when I must do my homework and go to practice the same night. It’s so stressful trying to keep up in all my classes, especially when teachers expect things to be done in less than a day. I am not the only student who feels this way.
According to Harvard Graduate School of Education, 53 percent of teens feel pressure to be exceptional and impressive through their achievements like honors classes, good grades, and jobs.
The only break I get from all of this is over school breaks. By the time breaks roll around I’m excited, but they fly by way too fast. For example, winter break is two weeks long, but the time does not feel very valuable. I spend winter break worrying about upcoming finals before the semester ends and homework I am assigned to do before coming back to school. Instead of coming back to school feeling recharged from the break, I often feel stressed and anxious about the pressure that is going to return once classes resume. These short breaks are not fully enough to recover from months of constant academic stress on top of high demands from extracurricular activities or sports.
According to the National Institute of Health, findings from previous studies have shown that academic burnout has a negative impact on students’ academic performance and affects their mental health, including inducing feelings of stress, anxiety, frustration, and fear.
I am aware that teachers must assign due dates on assignments to ensure students get them done. Placing pressure on students can help them learn about accountability and responsibility to get things done when they need to be done in the real world. This type of stress can be healthy because it motivates students to stay organized, have good time-management skills, and work hard. However, when this stress is constantly being placed on them, it can become unhealthy over time and lead to burnout rather than learning. Because of this, teachers should be more understanding when students need breaks and be more accepting of occasional deadline flexibility to help support students and their mental health. This can help students be more successful in their classes while also protecting their mental health and preventing burnout.
Another suggestion I have is four-day weeks. Going to school for four days and having a three-day weekend can help students feel less pressure on their shoulders, more time to relax, and more time to complete homework.