Wildcats feel weight of Covid stress in recovering from academic atrophy

With seemingly never-ending homework, the pressure to succeed in school to prepare for college to become riddled with debt, and the age of social media and high beauty standards, (oh, and throw a global pandemic into the mix) . . . to say high school students are stressed-out is an understatement. Two-thirds of students at West who responded to a stress survey ranked their level of stress at a four or a five on a one to five scale, five being the most stressed out. The number one leading culprit? Overwhelmingly, school and homework.

For sophomore Erin Fox, the work given for students to do outside of class is a big stressor.

“Almost all of my classes assign homework and it’s a lot of it,” they said. “I don’t have much time recently because of the play and extracurriculars. It feels like we’re encouraged to do extracurriculars, but then we don’t have enough time to do homework and the extracurriculars.”

Worries about school amplify worrying about everything for junior Isabella Sylvia.

“I think school is my main stressor,” she said. “And when I’m stressed about school, everything else gets more stressful. So if I didn’t have school, I wouldn’t have any stress at all. But because I have school, it’s 100% of my stress. It’s just the frequency of tests. I want to do good on them, but it’s so hard when there are so many of them all the time.”

Junior Travis Schmid finds the long school days tough to handle, and wonders if students will use the skills they learn later in life. 

“Not only is school eight hours a day, but it’s every day,” he said. “Every day for five days a week. I don’t want to do this over and over again. And I have a difficult time reasoning when I’m going to use the things I learn. A lot of teachers get upset about that, but it’s the real question. I’m going to get out of school in a little over a year, and when am I going to use geometry?”

Because she is involved in many activities, senior Annika Nesterick has felt the pressure of responsibility build up.

“Being in leadership in a lot of stuff, I feel like people are relying on me,” she said. “Also, certain teachers don’t understand how to properly give homework. You can’t give too much homework because we don’t have time for that, but also give homework so we learn the lessons.”

Sophomore Michael Mueller has a hard time stopping the momentum of missed assignments, which only makes the situation worse.

“Once I get down, I keep going down,” he said. “If I accidentally miss a homework assignment, I’m less likely to do the next one. It has the same effect positively. It has a snowball effect. If I get bogged down in stress, the less likely I am to continue.”

The loads of time and effort necessary to do well in difficult classes often cause Nesterick to be less prepared than she would like to be.

“If I have multiple tests on one day and I’m stressing the night before, my studying isn’t productive and then I do worse,” she said.

Another potential source of stress for students arises from the infamous social networking apps used by 95% of students who responded to the survey. 70% of students said none of their stress is caused by social media, however, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a negative side to absorbing content online.

“Social media can be good and can be bad. It’s how I see everything and find out what’s going on in the world,” senior Roman Martell said. “The bad parts are that since it’s a form of communication, people can say things to you they wouldn’t say to your face that can be harmful. Also, seeing a false standard. I always see bodybuilders on Instagram and I think, ‘wow, I want to be like him,’ but at the same time, it’s unrealistic. People are stressing out over things they can’t control, especially with social media.”

Sophomore Isabella Seely has experienced similar thoughts while scrolling through posts.

“Body image is stressful for a lot of people. I start to think I need to work out or eat better,” she said. “Society standards are girls need to be skinny, and can’t have rolls, and things like that. It gets really stressful because you don’t know what people are going to say about you.”

One anonymous student who responded to the survey explained how images seen online can be unattainable, and therefore harmful to students.

“The high expectations that stem from social media can be really damaging when it comes to self-esteem and that can be stressful,” they said.

Another anonymous student finds social media to benefit their levels of stress.

“For me personally, social media tends to help my mental health and stress levels because things I find comforting are accessible online,” they said. “Things such as friends and comfort content creators really help. However, sometimes it's a bad thing because I'll see things I don't want to. Overall, it's a positive.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has made learning at school more difficult for many students, which leads to increased stress levels.

“I think of stress like a vest. The more stressed you are, the more weight that’s added to the vest. COVID is a lot of stress to lump on somebody,” Schmid said. “When everybody was virtual, people were doing really bad and getting really depressed. You couldn’t do much about it except suck it up and deal with it which was kind of the worst part.”

Declining grades were a reality for many, including freshman Jaiden Fronczak, who didn’t get a normal transition to high school.

“Personally, when COVID hit, my grades went down. There was just a lot of stress and I didn’t really want to do any work,” he said. “Some days, I would just lie down and not want to do anything because I was so stressed out. COVID also made the jump to high school harder because we couldn’t do as much stuff in middle school that I think would’ve helped me for high school.”

Senior Sam Groth’s study habits declined due to the pandemic.

“After last year, it changed my productivity,” he said. “Freshman and sophomore year I had a really good efficiency rate and I was able to stay on top of my work. But last year with online learning and the change of schoolwork, it changed how I did my schoolwork. I’m trying to get back to being more efficient and on top of things.”

Seely prefers in-person learning to virtual because of the increased retention that comes with learning face-to-face.

“Virtual learning really lowered my standards for myself because I felt like I was constantly failing and not learning anything,” she said. “Being in-person learning, I feel like I’m learning and understanding things. I’m in chemistry now and I was just thinking, what if I had to do this virtually? I would be screwed. My grades were going down during virtual learning, and now being in person, my grades are phenomenal.”

Learning over computer screens was stressful for Martell because of a lack of motivation.

“Going virtual was tough for me because I didn’t have very good study habits and I was turning in stuff late,” he said. “Even though I knew I had to get stuff done, I didn’t want to get it done. Not being at school really hurt me. I also felt the workload was worse, and at home, I had more freedom to push it off.”

While learning at home, Mueller missed seeing teachers in person.

“Not having the structure of the classroom really affected me. I like having the in-person experience of being able to talk with the teacher and get that face-to-face interaction,” he said. “And with the hybrid system, everybody had more to keep track of and there was so much unneeded stress with switching plans.”

Nesterick missed out on important information due to a lapse of communication during at-home learning.

“With college applications and scholarship stuff, I feel like we got gypped on communication and meetings because we were virtual,” she said. “I would still like to have those communications even if we were virtual.”

73% of students who responded to the survey said at least some of their stress could be attributed to family, and home life. However, for Mueller, family is an escape.

“Family tends to be the one thing I’m happy to get home to. I don’t find any stress here,” he said. “It’s the one place where I can chill out that’s not sports or academics or any extracurricular. It’s the place where I have the most control over everything going on. If anything, it’s more of a safe haven and stress relief.”

One consequence of being stressed out is impaired communication skills. Many students don’t feel like being around others when they’re stressed out.

“Stress can put you more on edge,” Groth said. “That can cause you to misinterpret what someone else says. For myself, I isolate myself to do schoolwork instead of socializing with friends and going out.”

Stress can have a negative impact on the way Seely acts towards others.

“When I get too anxious, I start to get crabby. I get annoyed very easily, and I tend to take some stuff out on people around me, which is not a good trait to have,” she said. “Say there’s a friend that’s talking to me about their problems. I try to listen, but when it’s constant, and there are so many people coming to me for advice, it gets to a point where no one asks me if I’m okay. No one asks if I’m stressed. That’s what frustrates me with my peers.”

One way Mueller likes to cope with his stress is by relaxing to mellow tunes.

“I like to listen to music; I find it very soothing,” he said. “For me, it’s not about the lyrics, but the rhythm and beat of it. It can help soothe me, like lower beats per minute compared to higher. It helps me feel a lot better.”

Over half of the students who responded to the survey are most likely to talk to their friends about their stress, while less than 10% of students say they speak to a counselor when they’re stressed. Seely is part of that 10%, though, and has had a positive experience with her therapist.

“I definitely recommend it because it’s very helpful,” she said. “I started talking to a therapist so I wouldn’t end up in a deep hole mentally. When I started going to therapy, it helped me get through a lot of things.”

Mueller recommends speaking with a therapist to anyone going through tough times.

“It’s so nice to have somebody who’s trained and that’s their job and knows how to help,” he said. “I know when I’m consistently talking to a therapist, I feel a lot better than when I’m not.”

Just over one-third of students who responded to the survey said they don’t talk to anyone about their stress. However, there are many benefits to getting negative thoughts out of your head and into the world.

“Just having someone listen to you is helpful,” Fronczak said. “If they’re our age, like your friend, they might help because of stuff going on in their life. If it’s someone older, they might give you life lessons because they’ve been through your situation before.”

In terms of how teachers helped students during virtual learning, Fox thought they did as well as they could, given the circumstances.

“Teachers really did help us as best they could, but we couldn’t get that help because students just need in person and that guidance,” they said. “It all depends on the person, but for me, it’s really hard to work outside of school because it’s not a structured environment.”

With Sylvia’s instructors, the amount of support she receives depends on the specific teacher.

“I have some teachers who are really good about it,” she said. “If you talk to them before a test, they’ll give you extra time or let you make it up. But there are teachers for more advanced classes that have stricter guidelines. Some are really accommodating; some aren’t that understanding of it.”

Groth appreciates teachers that are understanding towards students.

“Some teachers I’ve had are really good at understanding that students are under a lot of duress and stressed out about their class and other classes,” he said. “Those teachers are able to minimize the workload and put off assignments. Some teachers can’t see that and just continue their workload and can’t communicate with students.”

Schmid acknowledges the difficulty teachers experience when trying to help students manage their stress.

“It’s probably one of the more stressful things that teachers have to deal with. It’s hard to help someone if you don’t really know how to help them,” he said. “You can’t just say, ‘be calm.’ You see this kid that you don’t really know that well, and you’re just trying to help them, but you don’t really know how they’re doing.”

Seely believes a better understanding of student life would translate to handling students who are stressed out.

“A lot of adults, in general, think that kids don’t go through half as much as they went through as a kid, and we’re not grateful to have them, but we are more definitely grateful. It’s just that we have a lot of things going on too,” she said. “We have six other classes than your class. A lot of things get very stressful and built up. So just be reasonable. Be very reasonable with us because we are going through a lot of changes."

By Abby Furcy

Oshkosh West Index Volume 118 Issue III

November 29th, 2021