Academic Pressure: Motivating or Stressful?

Destiny Smith, Staff Writer

There are a lot of expectations for students, especially from parents or teachers. Some are low, but most are exceedingly high. And, year after year of being exposed to these expectations, all that pressure eventually builds up. The truth of the matter is, some kids just cannot handle the stress born from the expectations. Some expectations are important of course, as low ones can cause slackers and other complications, but setting an extremely high bar for students also causes problems. Trust me, I’m a student. And I know a lot of other students; I’m surrounded by them every day and many of them struggle with stress as a result of academic expectations. In fact, Casper Wagner said that the academic pressure results in “about 75 percent” of his stress.

There is no definite source of pressure, just a few which are easy to pinpoint: teachers, parents, and the student’s own self. Hayden Daniels said that “fear us where most pressure comes from” whereas Emily Birkler named her friends as a source of pressure when she said “most of them are in AP or honors classes and I’m only in basic classes.” It goes to show that there could be many factors and sources that could contribute to academic pressure. Personally, I find that the mixture of my parent’s and teacher’s expectations causes me set a high bar for myself that leads to a mass amount of stress.

But, at what extent is academic pressure considered too much? People differ and it could be hard for teachers to tell to what extent to motive their students to reach for higher grades. Well, students don’t need a mass amount of pressure because, as Hayden Daniels put it “the fact that if you fail the class then you fail for the rest of your life should be good enough motivation.” Casper Wagner’s statement made a similar sort of self pressure remark. He said that only about 20% to 30% of your academic pressure should come from teachers and that “it should mostly come from the student.” So, students should set their own standards, as it is their own life and they need to figure out how it is they wish to live it. Teachers just need to relax and assist when they feel that it is necessary, always keeping in mind that it is the student’s life and that the students themselves need to work on their academics.