A common idea in today’s society is that if a student is doing well in school, getting good grades, and getting all of their work done, they will be happy and healthy. Is this really true though? Obviously school is not always really easy or really challenging: this is a good thing, too, since students need a break and need to be challenged from time to time. The teachers at St. Andrews are quite good at balancing work loads on students, but whenever it is around the end of the trimester it is all too common to walk through the hallways and hear students from all grades talking about how they have soo much work to do and how they are not happy with how their teachers are giving them such a large amount of work all at one time. Even the best of students feel the titanic load of homework, expectations to get good grades, and pressure to do well and do everything – no one is immune. Added to this pressure is the pressure to make honor roll for academics and effort, maybe even high honor roll. The fact that it becomes very public whether a student gets good grades or not can be another motivator to do well.
The pressures of freshman year are very different from the pressures of junior year, but despite being different, theres no denying that everyone is stressed at least from time to time. Freshman year is about adapting to a larger workload and more responsibilities as a high schooler, as well as just getting used to being in an entirely new setting if you are a new student. On the other hand, by junior year you are fully adapted to the school and responsibilities of high school. The workload has increased over time, and everyone expects more of you, but amidst all the changes, from people changing physically, emotionally, people leaving school, new students arriving, changing expectations and assignments, the only constant is stress. That stress is magnified around the end of the trimesters with teachers making sure to get all the assignments in that they feel are necessary. Around these times of the year freshman are stressed because they are likely trying very hard to start off their high school career well, grade-wise, whereas juniors are stressed trying to round out their grades so that they can put the highest possible GPA on their college applications. Regardless, the stress is real and you can sense it in the hallways. Wearier faces, and sluggish strides give it away quite quickly how much pressure there is on students to succeed.
Unfortunately, even the students with the best grades are not assured happiness. It would be convenient to think that good grades equals happiness in the life of a high school student, but that assumption would also be delusional. It is true that students with good grades are likely less worried because of not having to worry about getting their grades up to help with getting into college, or just to impress their parents, but those good grades are likely also taking away hours of sleep from those students every week. For every extra homework assignment or essay to write, there is also less time to hang out with friends, more important even than that, just relax for a bit. If a student has a study hall during the school day and can get a homework assignment done at school, then they have slightly more time to take a break in the afternoon, giving their body and brain the break it desperately needs in order to keep functioning at its highest ability. Having free time to relax and decompress is no joke: it is as important as working hard in school, maybe even more important, and usually when that is neglected, everything else gets worse.
Good grades do not always lead to happiness. Sure, you can be happy about your 3.8 GPA, but what about the bags under your eyes, and the fact that by the time you get home you can barely keep your head up, and the fact that you are getting 5 hours of sleep a night when the ideal amount is 8 to 9 hours? Even the students with great grades are not happy if they also have not slept more than 6 hours in a week. A lot of students, though, know that good grades are important and so the pressure to succeed academically causes them to neglect their health, not because they want to, but because they think they have to. After all, everyone knows that getting good grades, like everything else, is a competition and the students with the best grades are the best people. Who cares about sleep and being happy and healthy anyways, right? Or maybe not….