Stress Students Face

When you walk in the middle school halls, you will see different types of students from different grades that all have different expressions. Some look relieved, some look relaxed, some have no apparent emotions and some look stressed. They might be stressed for different reasons, some might be stressed due to homework and others could be nervous because of an upcoming test. Students all have to deal with stress and they all deal with it in a different way.

You might wonder what students are thinking when they feel this way. On an ordinary Monday morning, two eighth graders were talking to each other. “OMG, I’m so not looking forward for the math test today!” says one of the girls who was frantically shuffling through her papers, touching her hair rigourously. Her friend who also looked distraught said “ I have a strong feeling that i’m going to fail the test. I seriously don’t understand math at all.” As she was talking, she was scrolling through her notes and tapping her pencil anxiously on her messy notebook, trying to understand what she was reading.

The two girls later go to their mentor class for mentor time. After a pleasant 40 minutes, they slowly went to math class where their math teacher is patiently waiting for them to take the test. The two girls both have sweat rolling down their face and have a distressed look as they enter the room. The teacher waits for all the students to arrive, and once they all arrive he hands out the tests and wishes them good luck. Once the two girls both have their test, they look at each other. One tries to mouth out the word “help” while the other ignores her. They focus on the questions and skip the ones that they don’t understand. Once they finish the test they quietly leave the classroom. “How did you do on the test? I personally found it so difficult like I skipped so many questions!” the other replies and blurts out, “Ugh don’t even get me started on it! But now I’m really scared and stressed for the results”. They both have a somewhat relieved look.

A few days later they enter their math class and get their test back. The two girls did quite poorly and they both have to do a retest. We can see the sad look in their eyes as they hear the bad news. And the cycle starts again, they stress out. Will they do better when they take the retest and have more time to study? or will they do as badly?

In conclusion, stress does affect the way you work and the less you stress, the better you will do