Stress and Students
Paul Bailey
9/21/2016
According to
Dianna Bohmer of familyeducation.com,
stressful situations for kids occur when
- Parental Problems (divorce, aruing parents, etc.)
- Fighting with friends or a sibling
- Taking a test (college entrance exam, state standardized assessment, class finals, etc.)
- Being attractive to someone
- Not enough privacy (sharing a bedroom with siblings or extended family members)
- Birth of a sibling (or new step-siblings)
- Moving to a new school
- Not having enough money
- A teacher who doesn’t like him/her
Children that live in
poverty may be part of many, if not all, of stressful situations. Here is a
realistic scenario that I have put together from interactions I have had with
students.
Scenerio: Jack lives with his father and his father’s new girlfriend in
a small three bedroom place. Jack’s parents split up over the summer and his
two younger sisters stayed with his mother. Jack’s mother is living with his
grandmother, aunt, and two cousins. Jack’s father has moved in with his
girlfriend who lives in the neighboring school district. Jack and his father
move into the small place with his father’s girlfriend, her son, daughter, and
newborn (that is believed to be the son of Jack’s father). Jack has to share a
bedroom with the girlfriend’s son.
When his parents separated, Jack’s father promised to drive Jack to his
school every day so that he could still be with his friends. However, over the
first two months of school, Jack’s father did not come home a few nights, the
truck was broke down a few days (and it was the only vehicle that was in
running condition), and his father recently lost his job. Jack has become
truant, so his father is going to enroll him in the school district in which
they live.
Jack's father and his girlfriend argue about not having money for
groceries, rent, electric, and/or water. Usually the argument ends with Jack’s
father slamming the screen door closed on his way out to the front porch to
smoke a cigarette.
Jack does tries to fit in with the kids at his new school, but a group
of boys give him a hard time and call him a dirtball because he transferred
from a “country” school. The taunting escalated one day and Jack pushed one of
the boys away. The gym teacher immediately sent Jack to the office and has not
been friendly to Jack when he returned to class.
From experience as an
educator and from spending my formative years in a rural area, I know that this
situation is similar to the situations that many kids are living. However, the scenario
did not mention anything about drug or alcohol use (by parents, the youth, and/or
peers), sexual acts(forced or voluntary), time constraints(sports, clubs,
jobs,etc.), or the strain of working to help the family pay the bills.
The bottom line is that
many students like Jack are living in stressful situations and show up to
school every day, well maybe not every day, but nevertheless the kids come to
school and want to learn. More importantly, the kids NEED to learn. If the
students are able to learn and advance their branch of the family tree, so that
their offspring may have more of a chance for success, then, over time the
cycle can be broken.
Stress has a
psychological impact on kids and as educators we need to know how it affects
kids. Students that live in poverty have high levels of stress and usually
maintain a high level of stress most of the time. With stress, the human body
produces cortisol. Cortisol in the human body suppresses body functions that
are not immediately needed to operate such as the reproduction system and
immune system. If stress is constant, cortisol is consistently produced, and
the immune system is shut down frequently. Thus, with an immune system not
functioning, illnesses occur more frequently, and a higher rate of absence
ensues.
Vanessa Bennington (n.d.)
states that cortisol causes an increase in gastric acid production, intense
food hunger, and an increase in cortisol levels causes the scheduled release of
cortisol to be affected. An increase in gastric acid leads to more illness and
absences for students. In addition, students that do not get enough to eat
already, an increase in food hunger causes kids to think more about lunch than
the lesson being presented. Typically cortisol is released and is highest in
the morning and gradually falls to a low point late in the afternoon. The
morning release of cortisol helps the body to get up and get moving. However,
with an altered cortisol release schedule, students may be getting their morning
cortisol at some other point during the day. High levels of cortisol in the
evening can cause difficulty falling asleep and would lead to the student to
dozing off the next day in class. I have spoke with many students who claim to
go to bed at a reasonable hour but could not seem to fall asleep until well
after midnight. At first I just thought the students were trying to tell me
what I wanted to hear. I figured they were up late playing video games or
perusing social media. However, understanding the effects of poverty and the
role stress has on the body has provided me with a better understanding of the
kids that I teach.
Sara Gottfried (n.d.)
reports that “Over
time, high cortisol, when sustained, is linking to high blood pressure,
diabetes, increased belly fat, brain changes such as atrophy of the hippocampus
(where memory is synthesized), depression, insomnia, and poor wound healing.”
Dr. Gottfried links high cortisol levels to more medical concerns, thus causing
students to miss more days of school. And “atrophy of the hippocampus,”
affecting memory would cause students to have difficulty remembering.
Difficulty remembering does not bode well for test scores. Students who have “increased
belly fat” and lower test scores may be tormented and harassed more by other
students or their own self perception causing additional stress in their life.
In the classroom stress affects student behaviors and
actions. The two systems that are affected by heart rate are the “fight or flight”
system (Sympathetic Nervous System) and the “rest and digest” system
(Parasympathetic Nervous System). Both systems continually work in conjunction
with one another, however, one system is primarily controlling the body’s
action based upon the heart rate (Basis, 2013). The “fight or flight” system is
in control of the body when stress is present. For students that have constant
stress, the “fight or flight” system is engaged more often than the “rest and
digest” system. Many times students will exhibit an improper behavior and the witnesses
will believe that the behavior was not rational in comparison to the events
that led to the misbehavior. However, stress is a hidden element and a stressed
student is constantly on edge. Therefore, educators can provide beneficial and
supportive interventions for the students when they understand that some
actions occur more quickly, more frequently, and at higher levels of intensity
due to the amount of stress in a student’s life.
To combat stress, Nane Steinhoff (2013) recommends that
students have a varied and healthy diet, exercise, meditate, take regular
breaks, get a pet, sleep, quit smoking, try to see the positive side, listen to
music, and laugh. Students living in poverty may have the opportunity to follow
some of the suggestions, but may not always have the support from family or
friends to follow through. As an educational system we can provide support for
the students.
Students living in poverty may not be able to have a
varied and healthy diet at home, however, at school we can provide students
with a top notch quality breakfast and lunch. For starters, adding Vitamin C to
meals will help the student’s immune system fight illnesses. Students of
poverty are eating most of their meals from a box, dry goods or frozen. If the
food served at school does not look enticing or taste good, then kids will
forego lunch and eat at home. Minneapolis Public Schools and others across the
nation have been serving delicious and healthy meal options every day for
breakfast and lunch. Every day numerous lunch options, fresh fruit and juices,
and a salad bar is available. See the menus for yourself.
In the classroom, teachers can utilize techniques to
help students reduce the stress and anger exhibited by students. Teachers can
emphasize and teach social and emotional skills in a classroom to help students
with positive self talk. Hanging posters with inspirational quotes on the wall
has quite an effect on students and sometimes we never know it does. Years
after a student had graduated, he informed me the poster I had in the corner of
the room…Steve Prefontaine crossing the finishing line of the ’72 Olympic
Trials with the a Tom Fleming quote “Somewhere in the world someone is training
when you’re not. When you race him, he will win.” The former student informed
me he read that poster everyday in class, he recited the quote to me and told
me that he used it as inspiration for his weight training leading into senior
year for football. Through individual or entire class discussions about being a
good person and “leaving this place better than when you arrived,” I was able
to provide students with inspiration, along with the belief that sometimes a
life lesson is more important than the math lesson.
Teachers can also use bottled water, water breaks,
restroom breaks, hallway conversations to provide students with breaks to keep
the in-class stress subdued when the out of class stress is constantly
overflowing.
The biggest reminder for teachers would be to “stay off
the escalator.” Kids will push to the limits and test adults. Kids are not
testing to see how far the limits can be extended; the kids are testing the
adults to see how much they care for them. Teachers that choose an office
referral over a relationship earn no trust and no respect from the student sent
away. Some students that remain in class also lose trust and respect for the
teacher because they can envision their self in the student’s shoes that is
walking to the office. Adults in education should keep situations calm and do
not escalate or allow students to escalate a situation into a more egregious
offense than has already occurred. Tranquil solutions allow the teacher and/or student(s)
to resolve a conflict without losing respect and dignity.
References:
Bennington, V. (n.d.). The Ups and Downs of Cortisol: What
You Need to Know. Retrieved from http://breakingmuscle.com/health-medicine/the-ups-and-downs-of-cortisol-what-you-need-to-know
Gottfried, S. (n.d.). Cortisol Switcharoo (Part 1): How
Cortisol Makes You Fat and Angry, Plus 7 Practices to Rock Your Stress.
Retrieved from http://www.saragottfriedmd.com/cortisol-switcharoo/
Steinhoff, N. (2013). Students: 10 Ways to Beat Stress.
Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2013/nov/06/students-ten-ways-to-beat-stress
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