How to Help Increasingly Stressed Out Students
If teachers must give high-stakes assessments, allow for full-credit retakes.
Once during an exam on the Civil War, one of my 11th graders burst into tears, fearful of what a low grade on the test might do to her future. “I’ll never get into college now,” she told me, as I tried to console her. “I might as well give up now. What’s the point?”
Another time, when presented with irrefutable proof of her having lifted portions of her research paper, an otherwise strong student started crying hysterically: “I know it was really, really wrong, but this anxiety I feel to be perfect, it’s overriding my normal behavior and better judgment.” She told me that in an attempt to balance her AP classes, sports and social life, she had become stressed and saw no other way to earn a good grade.
I’ve heard countless similar stories from colleagues who teach at all types of schools. Students push themselves daily to unhealthy and unsustainable limits, often to get ahead, seek approval or both.
This behavior is having a harmful impact on student stress, depression and anxiety — including for those already enrolled in top colleges and universities. In extreme cases, as I learned from watching a recent PBS NewsHour segment about students who attend MIT, this…
