It’s 7 o’clock in the morning, the sun is barely out, and I’m RUSHING to get ready and catch the nearest packed train so I’m not late to first period. Hopefully I have time to buy some breakfast. Sounds like the typical high school student right?
Students often have lots of weight on their shoulders. They tend to take on lots of work and mentally exhaust themselves, to the point where school no longer becomes a place they want to attend. On top of that students have become more stressed because of the policies and lack of advocacy they have in their environment. What are the impacts of school policies on TCA students?
Kayleen Pimentel is a Junior in TCA from the Bronx, New York. I started off my interview by asking, whether she believes School affects most students’ mental health? With no doubt she said that she believes school does affect student mental health. She states that because of the workload students take on daily it creates pressure within the students and over-stimulates them. Also how socializing and creating connections while keeping up with your studies becomes stressful for most students. Following this question I asked Pimentel, how can school become less stressful for students? “School can become less stressful for students, if the work was more inclusive”, Pimentel stated. She said how if teachers let students be more involved and thought more about the students overall being, they would become more involved and be more engaged in the classroom. On top of that she added how if teachers were more understanding of students’ social life, they would put less pressure on us and give us room outside the classroom to work on ourselves instead of making us more occupied with work.
Madiou Ndong is currently a 12th grader at The College Academy. Madiou is from Senegal and he came to the United states at the age of 7. I asked a couple of questions based on our school and he gave me his opinion. The first question I asked him was if he agrees with the one student in the bathroom policy. Mr. Ndong said “ Yes because I feel like students will be smoking and doing other stuff while in there”. The next question I asked was is the new schedule change in our school a good idea? Madiou said it’s not a good idea because it wont give the students enough time to get to school and go to our lockers. This was a fun interview to do because getting a student perspective is better than asking a staff member from our school.
After interviewing Madiou Ndong and Kayleen Pimentel, we are able to get their opinion on our school policies . After listening to a few voices, we can see that opinion is mixed. Some people may agree that the school policies are working and should stay like that. Yet others will disagree and think students should have more of a voice. Learning about how they actually feel about our school is great because that way their voices will be heard. We hope when the other students read this article they will start to speak up more and give their own ideas about what the school should do and don’t do. We believe having a student perspective in our article has a positive effect because at the end of the day a student perspective should always be involved and not just the adults.
