The Mental Health Crisis in the High School Education System
The Pressure to be Perfect
What is going on within high schools all across the country?
The Pressure to Be Perfect
All across the country, high schools students are put under an immense amount of pressure to be perfect in every single school subject. This unreasonable expectation has damaged many students' mental health and they often turn to harmful behaviors to make themselves feel better.
According to the National Risk Behavior Survey taken by the CDC in 2015, students who have lower grades are...
more likely to use drugs.
almost two times more likely to feel sad or hopeless.
more than two times more likely to seriously consider suicide.
These statistics are extremely disturbing. Seeing how students with lower grades are more likely to do something to hurt themselves than students with higher grades, it creates a question about why the education system is structured this way. The education system is broken, but it does not seem to be noticed by the majority of leaders. High school students deserve the right to be treated with dignity, which includes the understanding that they are not perfect and will make mistakes. This crisis is an injustice throughout the United States that needs to be addressed immediately so that children can thrive.