Editor’s note: While School News Network always prioritizes student voice in our articles, we know there is so much more to tell. We believe to truly tell the stories that need to be told, we should first and foremost elevate students’ ideas, opinions and experiences. This spring, we spoke with a panel of 10 high-schoolers from nine of the districts we cover — urban, suburban and rural — to get their thoughts on what high school, and everyday life, is like for them. This is the second installment of six parts of our conversation; this interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Part 1: What is high school like for you?
All districts — Continuing our series of discussions with our student roundtable, we invited their thoughts about a topic of increasing concern in schools: students’ mental health. How big of an issue is it at their schools, and for them personally? Even a high-achieving group like this had plenty to say about it, in ways that sometimes surprised us — and reveal much about what it’s like to be a high-school student today.
SNN: How big of a problem do you think mental health, bullying and stress is for students?
Erin, senior: “I don’t see bullying as a prevalent thing in my school, or problem issues with mental health. But it’s also because I’m always around the athletes and the people who are close-knit and really enjoy school and school spirit. So I can’t speak for the people who aren’t super into school or have pride for our school, but I feel like once you find a community that you feel you belong in, then you’re okay.”
Andrew, senior: “My own personal experience, I moved to (a new district) last year, and I got pushed aside basically for a whole year. Nobody cared to talk to me. I would try reaching out and nobody would. So I really had to take this year to learn how to talk to people again: just be able to reach out to people and get them to talk.”
Ellison, senior: “It is really hard once you get shut down. People make snap judgments sometimes, and that can automatically lead to, like, closed-off connections. And I feel like our attention spans have shortened a lot over the past few years.”
Chay’ce, junior: “Yeah. It can come (down) to as much as, ‘This person’s doing their homework all the time. I don’t like them.’”
Ellison: “Yeah: ‘This person is doing too much in class. They’re annoying.’” [Laughter]
SNN: Is there a problem getting pigeonholed, like you’re just this one type of person and that’s the label you have to wear?
Erin, senior: “I go to a small school, so pretty much however you acted in elementary school, that’s just kind of who you are until you graduate.”
Andrew, senior: “There’s not much you can do to get rid of that. There’s not room for it.”
Anari, senior: “I feel like, being in a big school and having lots of elementaries and three middle schools, people have their own group. And then if someone new (is) transferred in and trying to make friends, they’re not into bringing new people (into) their group. I feel like that’s a huge thing in my school: People are just so excluded, and like it’s just their group and their group only. Very, very cliquey.”
Jackson, junior: “That definitely is like the opposite of us. … At (our school), we don’t have a ton of kids, but we don’t have a small amount of kids. When people move in, they fit into a group. It’s weird. It’s like, fast — there’s always a group that’s open, and it’s different groups every time.”
Zoe, junior: “When a new kid comes (to my school), everyone’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, come hang out with me. Come be my friend.’ But when it’s someone who you’ve known since elementary school, if they lose touch with their friend group in my school, you don’t really see them go to a different friend group. … That’s just kind of how unfortunately it is, even though you’ve known them for so long.”
SNN: As student leaders and higher achievers, are you feeling any sort of pressure from having to achieve academically, and does that cause you any stress or anxiety?
Jadon, junior: “A healthy amount. [Laughter] You can’t look to starting a career and be like, ‘I don’t have any stress,’ because then you’re not pushing yourself.”
Chay’ce, junior: “With a lot of us, mainly the whole thought is the future. It’s like the future, the future, the future. And so when it comes to school, everything we’re doing is kind of going towards the future. That can be stressful, because depending on what you’re going to do, whether it’s teaching or business (or) higher medicine, they’re trying to get their credits done before (college). … Because you don’t want to be in college for that many years.”
Anari, senior: “Yeah, and being in debt and all this other stuff. My mom’s been telling me a lot about making sure I don’t have any debt. And I listen, but I’m not really listening, because I feel like no matter what, especially right now, I’m gonna be in debt. And I just don’t want to have one more thing to stress about right now, because I just really want to just enjoy the moment now.”
Andrew, senior: “I was really considering the military, and I did all the testing and the whole process of going through it … just so I could avoid debt. That was, like, my only reason for wanting to join. That’s how bad I think it’s gotten with college now: that it feels like the only successful way to avoid early debt would be to go through the military. And I don’t feel like that should have to be a thing as much as it actually is.”
Zoe, junior: “The funny thing is, I feel like for what I want to do, I don’t actually have to go to college for it. But I go to such a high-achieving school that from freshman year, everyone’s taking the highest classes that you can take. So I just thought, ‘Oh, that’s the standard everywhere. So I have to do that.’ And then you look around at some other people, and they’re like, ‘Oh, no, I have a lower GPA than that.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, a 4.0 isn’t the norm?’ So it’s just stressful, because everyone around you is achieving so high, so then you think, ‘I have to go to the best college, I have to take the hardest classes,’ and then that’s what you end up doing.”
Chay’ce, junior: “I feel like, once it starts, it does not stop. Once you start, it’s something that’s just like, ‘I gotta keep doing it.’ Even when you go home, I’m so tired, but I just have to keep going.”
Erin, senior: “When you’re used to holding yourself to that high standard, or if you’re known as the smart person in school, you feel like you have to continue to take those hard classes. For me, I’ve never felt an outside stress. I know my parents are gonna be proud of me no matter what. I know that nobody really cares that much about my life, but for me, it’s just really important. But when I achieve something, I just kind of feel relief. I don’t necessarily feel, ‘Oh, I’m proud of doing that.’ I’m just like, ‘Oh, thank goodness. I’m glad that I did that.’ Because it was almost like I was supposed to be able to do that anyway.”
Ellison, senior: “It’s like, well, if the college I’m going to is a higher-level college, they’re probably gonna take less of those credits anyways. You’re still going to be in school four years. So what was even the point? It’s like a big race. Everyone’s just trying to get this to this point, egging each other on to the point where some people just drop out, and then they get left behind. And then you have this divide in schools where it’s either, like, super-overachieving or not very overachieving.”
Erin, senior: “Everyone feels like they have to take the same path or do the same thing. It’s not emphasized enough that it’s okay to have a completely different path than other people. If you’re going to be a doctor, some people take gap years before they go to med school, but a lot of people going into that think, ‘No, I have to do four years of college and then have to go right into med school.’ But it doesn’t have to work like that. And it’s the same with other careers. There’s just so many different paths you can take. And I feel like everyone is just like, ‘No, you have to do the best all the time and take that straightforward path.’”
Jadon, junior: “I’ve got a real benefit this year: Our school has a college readiness and career kind of counselor, but her job is only to help juniors and seniors with college-slash-career readiness. There’s not enough counselors. I have to hunt down a time to talk with my counselor about changing a class or doing any of that. But being able to talk to her, she is really, really helpful, knowledgeable in all the different scholarships that I can apply for and qualify for. That’s another thing, you don’t know how much money there is that you can get until someone tells you how much money there is you can get. She can tell you what path is best to take, gives you options.”
Anari, senior: “My school has a college adviser, but she wasn’t useful to me. I want to be a vet, and I want to go to vet school to be a veterinarian. I talked to my counselors and I talked to the college adviser, and they were like, ‘OK, that’s awesome. Here’s the schools that have the vet program.’ But I still don’t know what I’m majoring in. It’s like they just left me there. I was just so frustrated by that.”
Andrew, senior: “They kind of hold your hand up until, ‘here’s your college that you’re going to,’ and they just drop you off. There’s no trying to help you figure out what you want to do.”
Next installment: Do you feel safe at school?
Thank you to The New York Times for inspiring the format for this panel, which we used to elevate the voices of students.
Read more from our districts:
• High-schoolers talk mental health with education leaders, legislators
• District invests in web of support for students’ health, well-being
