Students' Mental Health
Brittany DeLeon
Embedded Files
Anticipatory Set
Before we begin, visualize in your head what student's mental health means to you. What does that look like?
Learning Targets!
Learning target #1
At the end of this lesson, my audience will be able to IDENTIFY and LIST what effects student mental health especially during a pandemic.
Learning Target #2
At the end of my lesson, my audience will be able to DESCRIBE in detail why students mental health is important.
What is student mental health?
Students mental health is the state or wellbeing of each student. This can be measured by how one is coping with the stresses of life. School on its own can be stressful enough for students, on top of adding on the additional stress of living in a global pandemic that many are fearing for their lives. Ariani Sulistyorini and Tutut Pujianto conducted a study to find out what the emergence of the pandemic has had on our emotional and mental health. From their study, " The mental health disordered experienced included symptoms of fear, worry, anxiety, tension and excessive headaches." (Sulistyorini and Pujianto, 2020)
Why is students' mental health important?
The reason why student mental health matters is because this effects how students concentrate, their energy levels and participation. To put this in perspective Anderson has a good reason as to what this could lead to as a student. Anderson from Inside higher Ed. states "Without having the adequate treatment studets can experience receiving bad grades or bad behavior. " (Anderson, 2020)
Stop and Think: After reading about students' mental health, what steps do you think we should take moving forward to prevent the amout of students suffering from poor mental health?
Interview
My interview was with Morgan Goolgasian who is a sophmore at Potomac High School in Northern Virginia. I have known Morgan for years and the dramtatic change from her determination and love for school quickly changed to overwhelming tasks that she felt could never be accomplished. I would say this interview was eye opening to say the least. It is important to keep in mind Morgan suffers from depression and anxiety symptoms daily. Her experience with online school in a pandemic was overall negative. She had multiple reasons for feeling like her mental health had decreased. My goal is to help the teacher of tomorrow to become aware to this harsh reality and together I believe we could have an impact on future students so that we can prevent levels from dropping this low.
Take Aways From Interview
1.Online classes make students feel more isolated and unsupported because of the lack of support from having fellow classmates and teachers. My first learning take away discusses the first impression I received from Morgan's experience and feelings towards the pandemic. Speaking with her really opened my eyes to how younger students are reacting to these major changes. Morgan already suffers from anxiety and depression so I was able to ask her how the transition has helped or hurt her mentally. She believes that this pandemic has caused her anxiety to be easily triggered, she never feels at ease with her school work. The isolation and feeling of having no support causes her to feel defeated and hopeless. Morgan expressed to me that she was concerned about her depression because of the fact that it was indeed impacting her grades. (Goolgasian, 2021)
2.This has installed a feeling of stress and loneliness. Students are suffering from the lack of connection and isolation on top of managing school work on top of the chaos happening on top of all the devastation. Morgan felt a lack of motivation and struggled to get out of bed and turn on her computer. My second thing I would want to be taken away from this is that students like Morgan's routines were taken away from them when they needed it most. It was beneficial to Morgan to be able to wake up and get ready for school. She found that she was more productive in a day than she is with online learning. Additionally, she struggles to get out of bed and sit at her desk because she oftentimes gets easily distracted while being at home. She does not yet have the discipline to not procrastinate and make herself sit up and actually do her work.
3. Morgan feels as if she is not doing as good as she would be doing if she was in person and finds it more stressful to keep up with all her assignments online. My last take away which I thought would be interesting to think about would be the fact that Morgan was almost certain that she would be doing better academically if she was attending school rather than online. The reason for that is she is unable to pay attention at home when she has the freedom to be on her electronic devices and she is more aware of what is happening in class when she is present. The reason I believe this is something to look into is because she made it clear to me that she had always loved school and had never felt this way about school before!
Conclusion
In my opinion, I am very happy that I interviewed with Morgan because she was a great representation of what it looks like to struggle from these serious mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. I am hoping for the teachers moving forward to take students like Morgan into consideration if we ever move to remote learning in a pandemic. By doing this lesson I learned not only did I get to learn more about a dear friend I also got to learn about how and why students' mental health is affected. Morgan expressed “ I do not want to go to college if it is going to be like this.” (Goolgasian, 2020) I was able to do research and take a walk in the shoes of a student who suffers from mental health issues and voice her story on the reality of poor mental health during a global pandemic. Work has begun, Kirsten Weir from the American Psychological Association mentions that "U.S. has passed laws requring schools to have a mental health curriculum" ( Weir, 2020) COVID-19 adds additional stress to students who are already facing bigger challenges. My information that I researched was very similar to how Morgan explained to feel mentally. For future educators we should consider how we could help the classes feel more comfortable and together in unity.
Two Questions :)
What is one negative effect that could cause students mental health to decrease?
a. Students must go to sleep at a reasonable time b. Students are more isolated due to remote learning c. Students feel that their homework has become harder d. Students can use their phones during class time
What is one sign you have learned from above you could recognize if a student is struggling with their mental health?
a. Student is asleep during class b. Student it being to talkative c. Student is distracted by others. d. Student is lacking the motivation to complete any
of their assignments
Correct answer: B. Students are more isolated due to remote learning
Correct answer: D. Student is lacking the motivation to complete any of their assignments
References
Anderson, G. A. (2020, September 11). Students in great need of mental health support during pandemic. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/11/students-great-need-mental-health-support-during-pandemic
Goolgasian, Morgan Interview 2021
Kluger, J. (2020, July 23). The Coronavirus' Effect on Kids' Mental Health Is Deepening. Retrieved from https://time.com/5870478/children-mental-health-coronavirus/
Sulistyorini, A., & Pujianto, T. (2020). The Description of Mental Health and Emotional Mental Disorders of Students And Families During Covid-19 Pandemic. Journal Of Nursing Practice, 4(1), 97-106. doi:10.30994/jnp.v4i1.119
Weir, Kirsten. (2020). Safeguarding student mental health. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/09/safeguarding-mental-health
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