The alarm sounds at 6:30 and it’s time for Student Senate, at 8:05 the regular school classes start. By 3:20 the day’s classes are finally done and you get a quick break before sports. Finally at 6:30 you get to go home but the never-ending pile of homework awaits you.

This demanding schedule is very common for many American teens as well as AHS student and it is causing a panic in high schoolers around the nation. According to a survey done by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 80 percent of the students they surveyed frequently experienced daily stress, and a different study done by the American Psychological Association discovered that 27 percent of the 2,968 teens and young adults surveyed experienced “extreme stress” during the school year. Walking through the halls of AHS it’s obvious that kids are stressed. Much of the conversations at the lunch table drifts to test grades and homework. The pressure of college, tests, friends, grades, sports, family and everything else is affecting our generation unlike any before us. The combination of school stressors along with everything else is putting millennials at risk for depression, anxiety and even suicide. In some cases it can even cause long term issues like mental illnesses, substance abuse, and even changes to the brain and physical body.

Some people associate these symptoms with just being a teenager but in truth the stress levels in teens have risen significantly from the past. In our modern age, new stressors including lack of jobs, body image and money have developed, making the millennials and generation X very different from past ones. TV, movies and ads have added more pressure to look certain ways, the constant stream of violence portrayed in movies and on the news is introducing teens to a new world of fears and worries, and social media is changing the way we perceive ourselves and others. This generation has grown up in a competitive world fueled by extreme expectations that has left teens constantly on edge.

Some educators and administrators believe that stress is necessary in order to prepare kids for college and the road ahead. They think that showing kid how to handle these pressures early helps to establish the skills to tackle bigger stresses and give students the necessary information. While a little bit of stress can be a positive thing when it is a motivator, it is incredibly harmful when it begins to overwhelm you. Students who are more stressed are also less able to actually absorb the information they are being taught. The level of stress that students are being exposed to at this point is leaving them unable to function properly. There is a fine line between being prepared and being burned out, and I believe that we as a society and administration have crossed it a few too many times. Even within our own school, teachers struggle to find the balance between excessive and necessary stress and no one knows where the line is.

While it seems unrealistic to completely change the way that the education system in America functions, it is necessary in order to foster a future for our world. We are the generation that will have to solve many of the world’s pressing problems and unless we are shown the way to properly deal with them, they will destroy our society and planet. In order for us to stop producing an overload of braindead students right out of high school, our society needs to shift its focus from cramming every student to the brim, to teaching them to be able think critically while giving them important life skills. While it is hard to determine exactly what students will need to know to function in the world, reducing the amount of busywork could be helpful. In addition students need to be taught how to handle the stress in a healthy way. We cannot continue to expect the students of America to live with such relentless stress in their lives without consequences.