Are Kids Too Stressed? One Middle Schooler's Take

Editor's note: , we ran a story about the film Race to Nowhere, which was screened at on March 10. The movie depicts the unhealthy side effects of the pressures placed on many students in school today. A local middle schooler who uses the pen name "Hope" attended the screening and offered to give us her take on the issues the movie presented. Here's what she wrote.

If you have seen Race to Nowhere, you have seen a movie that just scratches the surface of the school/homework/student relationship going on today. What you are about to read is what this issue is like from a kid’s perspective.

It starts in fourth and fifth grade, which you think is “so hard,” until you get to sixth grade.  Personally, I would say that sixth grade is where things really start to get tough because you are getting prepared for the transition into middle school.  The movie did a really good job covering the academic struggles that we as kids have.  What teachers need to understand is that we kids have other interests that exist outside of school projects, essays, testing and homework packs. Some have soccer or basketball practice, dance lessons or piano lessons. I really feel bad for the kids who take music as an elective at my school. Not only do they have the usual homework load, but they also have practice in class and maintain a mandatory practice log that is given out by the teacher, plus they probably have their own private lessons on top of that.  Anyway, I am getting a little off track ...

Keep in mind, I am writing this from my own experience, and other kids might feel differently, but most likely it will all come down to these three things. Yes, we do have too much homework. Yes, we do stay up way past any reasonable bedtime.  And, yes, even though we would like to watch that new episode of SpongeBob, we can’t because we have to complete a worksheet on the “Phases of Mitosis.”  In the next couple of paragraphs I’m going show you what it’s like to be me in middle school.

So ... you wake up, you look at the bright sunlight coming through the window and immediately sneak a glance at the papers you completed late last night.  You lie back down because you are still tired from the night before, and you are really not looking forward to going back to school.  You have faked being sick so many times that you really can’t call in again because you have to worry about truancy, so you have to go.  You then voice most or all of your problems to your parents and they give you some of the typical advice such as “have a positive attitude” or “try and find a couple of things that you like about school and focus on those instead of marinating on the negative.”  With that advice in mind, you take on a better attitude and you are not cursing every step you take on that path to middle school. In a few days, your confidence comes back.  You start to get new friends.  So now the silent depression that was creeping up on you is evaporating.  It is not completely gone, but at least it’s not the elephant that you were pulling from class to class last week.  OMG!  Your parents' advice actually worked!

Now let’s just stop there.  I want to go back and share some things about me.  I am 13, and I think I am fairly smart. (What I mean by that is, although I’m not a 4.0, I have managed to maintain a 3.7 to 3.8 grade point average for most of my life.)  I am a travel softball player. I am a Girl Scout Cadette.   I am also overweight.

Now, let’s get on with “the day.”  It’s the last period before lunch, and it’s P.E.  Having the body that I do, some of the activities can be a little challenging.  But with a new attitude, I have a new drive.  The teacher announces that we will be doing the mile run today, and you know what?  I want to do well. So I am in the dressing room, and I am a little self-conscious because, you know, I have some problem areas and I tend to think that everybody else realizes it, too. I am going to work on it. It’s time for the mile run. I start out with the medium-strong pace that I have been working on maintaining and even though I am usually the last one to finish, it no longer bothers me anymore because I am improving. I finish with my normal time, which is around 11 minutes and 45 seconds, but I feel I am still improving.  I really feel I am trying.  But guess what?  The P.E. teacher calls out my time in front of the whole class, loudly, and I feel totally embarrassed because I know that this time is among the slowest in my class. 

Then after she dismisses the class, she caps the whole thing off by saying to me, “You know what that time means?  It means you are not trying!”  After all of that work, I know that I am still slow, but I have worked hard to get to where I have gotten, and she just doesn’t notice or appreciate it.  In the locker room, I break down in tears and try to explain to my friends what is happening, and at least they manage to comfort me. Later, another teacher sees me and encourages me to keep trying my hardest. That’s what kids need: encouragement and kindness—the occasional “good job,”  something that I never get from my actual P.E. teacher, who probably has a stereotype in her mind of what the “perfect athlete” should look and act like. This is why I like softball.  The sport welcomes girls of all shapes and sizes, even at the very highest levels.

Now, let’s take a break here. I am struggling with self-confidence, self-esteem, weight issues, academics and everything else there is in the pot.

But P.E. is only responsible for a portion of the stress.  All of the emotions that I just listed might not be what you are going through, but they are very real for me. It is also important to say here that the stress we kids feel not only comes from school, but from outside sources as well.

So the rest of my day carries on as usual, and then I get home.  I grab something quick to eat for a snack and maybe have a little break and then get to whatever project, essay, workbook pages, math problems or reading assignments were given that day to turn in the next day.  Then later after I’ve gotten a few hours of work done, I go downstairs to eat and before I can get back upstairs to finish the rest of my homework. My mom looks down at my stomach and says I’ve been gaining weight.  We then get into a discussion about how I am not exercising enough and that the season will be starting in a few months and how I have to be ready.  This discussion morphs into how important softball is and how it’s the best path for me to get to a good college and how with Girl Scouts, academics, softball and other extracurricular activities I will be choosing which college to go to instead of applying and hoping like all the rest of the kids.  The discussion ends with how a lack of drive will get me nowhere.

I listen to my parents’ concerns and realize how many times I’ve had this same discussion. Now, don’t read this and start to think, “Uh-oh, it’s starting to get into a venting session,” because believe me, I have a point to go along with all of this. 

Let me talk from me to you for a moment ... I am a 13-year-old girl trying to “fluff” up my résumé right now. I know which colleges provide what and what different “vibes” each school has.  Looking at it from a business standpoint and with my softball career at a crossroads, I am faced with some very serious decisions here. 

I started out really liking the game, but as people started recognizing my “talent,” it got more and more serious.  We started looking at stats of college teams, taking private lessons, making “connections” within the softball world and transitioning to travel ball. Normally what takes a girl several years took me 18 months. It started off being an innocent experience and quickly expanded into “the future,” a career. My dad started driving me as if I were a college athlete already. I play softball for many reasons, but the main one is that it will be a less stressful way for me to get to a good college.  People are always saying that getting into a good school today is much harder than it was before, and I absolutely believe that.  Basically, by going the athletic route I can bypass all of the additional stress that other kids have when it comes time to prep for college. Going the academic route puts even more pressure on grades and test scores, requires even more extracurricular activities, takes more money and almost guarantees debt when you get out.  Then, of course, there are routes No. 3 and 4, which are community college or just not go at all.  Which would you choose?

Now it’s nighttime, and I am left with a lot of different thoughts in my head.  Did I get all my work done?  What am I going to do about softball?  What is best for my future?  For me?  What am I going to do about my weight? Who am I and what kind of life do I want to live? 

I am going to sleep tonight with those and many more unanswered questions in my head.  I am sure that other kids think about the same things I think about and more.

Well, this was the easy, non-graphic, non-explicit version of a typical day and just a piece of what we kids go through every day.  School at all levels is not the same as you adults remember it.  It is stealing our childhood away, and I continually feel the clock ticking away my limited time left being a kid.  What should be good memories are instead leaving longings and resentments.  I am a part of the Race to Nowhere.  This is a day in the life of a middle-school student.

—Hope