Schools and Mental Health

Schools and Mental Health

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Getting out of bed feels like a chore, in fact everything feels like a chore. You’re numb and nothing will

help; your grades are dropping but you cannot find the motivation to do your work. This is what nearly 20

percent of the teen population struggles with everyday, and most are uneducated and diagnosed (nearly 30

percent go untreated). Now more than ever, teens are struggling with mental illnesses or symptoms of them.

They are not informed on what is happening so they continue to struggle instead of getting help. The issue

at hand is the fact that not only students, but also teachers are uneducated on mental health and how to help

their students. Mental health is a serious issue and it is not being treated as such. There should be a topic on

mental health (and not just about depression and anxiety, about the other not as common mental illnesses

so people can be aware of those as well) in health class and or a class teachers could take to become more

educated on this growing epidemic.

A main problem with people being uneducated, is that teenagers are not being treated seriously. While

interviewing one of my friends (she wishes to stay anonymous), who struggles with mental illness she told

me that “teachers think that you can work through it when it’s hard to without the proper treatment, gym

teachers don’t make you play if you have a disadvantage like a broken leg. Why should

you be treated differently just because people 

cannot see your illness?” She brings up a very interesting point. People believe that teens are just being lazy, brushing off the fact that they are actually struggling. Based on some of my personal experiences, teachers sometimes tend to have an annoyed look when a student asks to go to guidance; that’s a problem. Staff members should not make students feel shame or embarrassment for trying to get the help they need. Even if the teacher thinks them going to guidance is a burden, they should not make the struggling student

feel that way.

Most teachers are not trained well enough in the subject of mental health. 41 percent of people, students

and teachers alike, go untreated with mental illness because they are uneducated. While talking with Ms.

Kassin, she tells me that she thinks ¨we don’t spend enough time teaching about mental health in schools.

At the high school level I students are able to start taking responsibility for themselves so I think it’s an

appropriate time to start talking about these issues.” Going off of Ms. Kassin’s words, students need this

kind of education. They need to be able to see that something is off about the way

they are feeling so they can reach out and get help; but without the proper education there’s a possibility they will never find out or know that something is wrong. Another person who struggles with mental illness said they ¨thought the way I was feeling was normal, I thought everyone else felt like this so I didn’t reach out to get help.” Now imagine this, someone broke their leg but assumed everyone else felt that pain and just kept on trying to thrive. That’s the same thing as what happened to that person, can you see how damaging that is? Mental health education.

Students with mental health problems are more likely to miss school. “youth with emotional and

behavioral disorders have the worst graduation rate of all students with disabilities.”(ACMH) Only

around 40 percent of students with mental health issues graduate and that’s a problem. That will

most likely decrease if we treated mental health more seriously. It’s hard to go to school when

you can’t even get out of bed and staff should be aware of that. “It’s hard to focus in class, my

mind is thinking of everything other than what’s happening on the board. I feel miserable at

school all I want to do is go home.” Students should not feel miserable at school.

In conclusion I believe the solution to helping these issues would be to have more education on this
subject. With more education, more people can be aware with how to approach mental health;
with others and themselves. Students would feel more welcomed in school rather than depressed
and hurting.

Citations:

“Problems at School | Association for Children's Mental Health.” ACMH, www.acmh-mi.org/get-help/navigating/problems-at-school/  

Gold, Jenny. “One out of Five Children Have Mental Illness, and Schools Often Don't Help.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 13 Sept. 2016, www.pbs.org/newshour/health/one-five-children-mental-illness-schools-often-dont-help.

NAMI.” NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness, www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-By-the-Numbers. Accessed 23 Oct. 2018. 

Admin. “Why Today's Teens Are More Depressed Than Ever.” Center For Discovery, Center For Discovery, 24 Sept. 2018, centerfordiscovery.com/blog/todays-teens-depressed-ever/. 

Pictures:

Greech, Veronica. “Why Our Mental Health Takes a Village .” The Wall Street Journal, www.wsj.com/articles/why-our-mental-health-takes-a-village-1516640136. 
Slate, and Thinkstock. “How to Fix America's Broken Mental Health.” Slate, slate.com/technology/2018/02/how-to-fix-americas-broken-mental-health-care-system.html.
Webb, Neil, and Getty Images . “PCOS Linked to Mental Health Issues.” Everydayhealth, www.everydayhealth.com/pcos/affects-womens-mental-health-babys-risk-adhd-autism/.
“Ideas about Mental Health.” Ted, www.ted.com/topics/mental+health.