Question:
I am in the 10th grade. I'd like to pose
a question to all the teachers who read this if they feel,
and have observed, if stress on a student effects thier
academic preformance.
Answer:
Most definitely - positively and negatively - stress is a prerequisite
for human function - when stress contributes to a flight or fight
response from the basic brain then it is highly likely that a student
will not be able to function optimally if at all.
Absolutely: stress is a factor in performance.. As someone else stated, stress can be positive or negative. For many people, stress can be a
positive factor in student performance. I had many students who studied better in physics when a test was approaching and did more accurate lab work when
it was a lab practical exam. I think it is quite true that some people work better under pressure. I had students who complained they were under too
much stress, but they always seemed to come through in the end!
Truthfully, in all my years of teaching I had no teen-age suicides among all the students I taught or knew. Some would *shut down* and couldn't work
any longer if their stress level was reached, but no one ever *went off the deep end* as we are all too often reminded of in the news elsewhere.
Stress can impact performance. A better question would be how?? In some cases, such as mine, the death of a brother 2 days before a standardized test
impacted me none whatsoever in that 2 day testing period. The illness of my father and the dealings of a job and caring for siblings while in college
actually raised my performance. I seemed capable of handling everything and did so. Performance, however, crashed when he came out of the hospital and my
mother resumed her job of caring for the home and siblings and I went back to just being a student. My focus became lost, and I actually retreated into
another "place" to help cope with what I had just been through. So my stress enhanced performance for the short-term.
I have known several students who committed suicide. One law student
committed suicide before classes even started, but the deaths usually occurred
farther into the year. In junior high, in 20+ years of teaching, my wife
has had about 4 or 5 children in class who attempted suicide during the year.
I don't believe concern over grades was an issue in any of those cases.
It certainly seems true that some stresses have strong effects on some students,
positively or negatively. I wish I knew how some people are able to cope
and thrive under pressures that cause others to wilt, because teaching those
skills would be more useful to many students than many other things we ask
them to learn.
Maybe not - but it does happen. It is interesting to me that while
problems abound in the inner city, the highest drug rate and suicide
rate in our suburban schools are found in the schools with the most
stress placed on students to acheive high grades and to go into
the elite colleges.
My dd had friends in one school that had this problem. The school
never wanted to deal with the emotional traumas when kids did commit
suicide either, so the kids whose friends were in this position often
had to deal with their own feelings alone or talk to those adults who
cared about them privately. Many of the kids in that system already
thought they were failures by 4th grade if they were not in the gifted
programs or even if they were, but were not at the top of their
classes.
