I asked both a teacher and a student about mental health at school.
Both with different answers.
Both with different perspectives.
Student Perspective:
I interviewed a junior from Pentucket Regional High School about how mental health is treated at her school. I asked if mental health was taken seriously enough. She answered “ Yes, not a lot of people are not willing to come forward about it because they dont wanna have to deal with the additional stress of the school being involved”. Some students like to keep their personal problems to themselves to avoid other people getting involved.
I then asked if her teachers ever take the time to make sure that all students, including her, are okay. Her response was “ Some do and some don’t”. Some teachers can recognize when there is a student struggling with mental health because of how they are doing on their school work.
I last asked her if there is anything she thinks that teachers should be doing for students to have less stress. She said to be considerate about how much homework you give your students so they don’t feel so overwhelmed about getting it all done on top of the sports and other classes they have to make time for.
Teacher Perspective:
I next interviewed Ms. Cromwell, a teacher at Pentucket Regional High School, about how mental health is treated at her school. I asked her if teachers ever take the time to make sure their students are okay. She answered with “I think so”. She feels that every teacher has a different approach for how to talk to a student about a subject that isn’t so easy to always talk about.
I then asked how she thinks the topic should be addressed by concerned teachers. She said, “One on one conversations and being aware of the students behavior”. She added that she does think that it is talked about enough at school though.
The last question I asked was if she thought it was taken seriously enough at school. Her answer was no. She thinks that there isn’t enough attention on it as well as isn’t talked about enough. She added teachers should be doing more.
Conclusion:
I saw two completely different perspectives when writing this article. However, the student’s and a teacher’s point of view on mental health at school were not as dissimilar as I had originally thought. Sometimes teachers think that they are doing enough but students could have the opposite or not agree with that opinion. Mental health is such a serious subject and that is why it does have to get brought up at school. There tends to be a lack of interest or a feeling of being forced when it comes to students that are struggling, it may be uncomfortable or hard for the student to talk about. Teachers should let the student know that there is help out there instead of trying to step in and do it themselves.
