Have you ever felt the weight of academic rigor bearing on your mental health? Have you ever lost your  motivation for school after years of pushing yourself academically? Have you ever felt your well being spiral due to academic stress? For many, the answer to one or all of these questions is yes. The school system has been set up in a way that allows and validates students measuring their academic success with academic stress, school goes from a place you enjoy to a place you dread. This system permits the prevalence of academic burnout in myself and many of my peers. As people who care about the future of education, we must challenge the traditional school system and demand that students’ mental health and well being is prioritized over school. 

One way of challenging the school system, should be the revaluation of standardized tests. Standardized tests induce unnecessary stress on students by inaccurately measuring student knowledge but still putting pressure on students. An article titled What Standardized Tests Do Not Measure states,”..standardized tests give students “ready-made” problems having little or nothing to do with their real-life experience and ask them to pick the one best answer and proceed quickly on without knowing whether the solution is correct.” This is unrealistic because many problems have more than one solution. Students should not be limited to one solution based on what someone else feels the answer should be. Standardized tests do not allow students to show any type of problem solving skills and or creativity that are necessary in measuring students’ intelligence and areas of weakness. Even though standardized tests are clearly ineffective they are placed on a high pedestal in the school system and are the cause of a lot of stress among students. It is necessary that we reevaluate the importance of standardized tests and focus more on assignments and tests that can accurately showcase students individuality, creativity, and problem solving skills. A test that meets this criteria is a Performance Based Task, these tests are a more accurate evaluation of student achievement and cause less stress by allowing students to apply their own creativity to answers and come up with their own solutions.

Another way of prioritizing students’ mental health is, reducing the amount of homework students are given. Students have multiple subjects or classes that they are given homework for, it is important to realize that students need time to themselves where they can enjoy their hobbies. It is nearly impossible to do that when students are continuously worried about multiple assignments that have to work on and turn in outside of school. A blog named Healium states,  “Homework-related stress can disrupt students’ sleep patterns, leading to sleep anxiety or sleep deprivation, both of which can negatively impact cognitive function and emotional regulation.” While it is true that students should be working on school content in and out of school, it is apparent that there needs to be a balance that benefits students. When students are stressed about school work and they don’t have time to participate in activities that boost their mental health, academic burnout is sure to arise. In order to reduce the chances of students burning out it is important for teachers to take into consideration the multiple other subjects and classes students have when giving out homework.

In conclusion, the best way to alleviate academic burnout is by getting to the root of the problem which is the way the school system is run and prioritizing mental health over school. This is important because the current education system is obviously not working for students. As students we have to advocate for ourselves and make sure that our mental health is always a priority.