There is growing evidence that school itself is essential to understanding why so many children seem to be struggling with mental health, according to an article in The New York Times. Schooling can be a cause of stress that exacerbates anxiety or depression, according to the article.
Nearly 32 percent of adolescents have been diagnosed at some point with anxiety; the median age of “onset” is 6 years old. More than one in 10 adolescents have experienced a major depressive disorder, according to some estimates. New categories materialize. There is now oppositional defiant disorder and pathological demand avoidance.
The experience of schooling has changed rapidly in recent decades. Starting in the 1980s, a metrics-obsessed regime took over American education and altered the expectations placed on children.
This era of policymaking has largely ebbed, with disappointing results. Math and reading levels are at their lowest in decades.
“What’s happening is, instead of saying, ‘We need to fix the schools,’ the message is, ‘We need to fix the kids,’” said Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College.
“The track has become narrower and narrower, so a greater range of people don’t fit that track anymore,” he said. “And the result is, we want to call it a disorder.”
How did education reach this point? By 2001, 30 states had laws that imposed a system of punishments and rewards for schools based on their test scores. The next year, President George W. Bush’s signature education reform law, No Child Left Behind, made the effort national.
School funding was now on the line, and there were clear incentives for children to be diagnosed. Starting in the 1990s, students with autism or A.D.H.D. become newly eligible for added support in the classroom. Getting a child treated, potentially with medication, could help an entire classroom achieve higher scores, especially if the child’s behavior was disruptive. In some parts of the country, children with disabilities were not counted toward a school’s overall marks, which could boost scores.
Performance demands in higher grades trickled down into younger ages. In 2009, the Obama administration offered more funds to schools that adopted new national learning standards called the Common Core. These included reading by the end of kindergarten.
Rote lessons in math and reading crept into classrooms. Researchers discovered that in the span of about a decade, kindergarten had suddenly become more like first grade.
Preschool was not far behind. Youngsters were expected to stay still for longer stretches of time to take in academic lessons. In 2005, a study showed that preschoolers were frequently being expelled for misbehavior — at rates more than three times that of school-age children.
“We’re not aligning the developmental needs of kids with the policies and practices that go on daily with schools,” said Denise Pope, senior lecturer at Stanford University and co-founder of Challenge Success.
The pressure to learn more restructured the school day. Before the 1980s, children usually had recess breaks throughout the day. By 2016, only eight states required daily recess in elementary schools. When researchers studied what had become of lunchtime, they learned that children often had just 20 minutes to eat, use the bathroom after class, walk to the cafeteria and wait in line for food.
Some parents may see children who simply need to toughen up. What they may not realize is how much children have begun to see school as something to be endured.
Anxiety and depression seem inevitable when children hope to secure enough stability in school to last the rest of their lives. In a 2020 paper, Yale researchers found that nearly 80 percent of high schoolers said they were stressed; almost 70 percent reported being bored.
School districts are trying to address the mental health crisis by teaching children how to better manage their emotions. Funding has increased for counseling services. But this does not account for schooling itself as a major source of stress and anxiety.
Many parents are giving up on the system altogether. A poll in 2023 found that about one in three home-schooling parents were unhappy with how their schools had educated their children with special needs, prompting them to leave. Parents are also increasingly turning to microschools — learning pods with small numbers of children who can receive more individual attention.
Some parents identify as being part of an “unschooling” movement. The believe school has done more harm than good for their children. Indeed, a 2016 paper showed that many young adults with childhood diagnoses of A.D.H.D. saw their symptoms improve once they left school and began working in a field that interested them.
Today, a child who strays from standards becomes a potential medical case to be solved, with more tests to take, more metrics to assess. What’s missing is an assessment of the environment around the child — made by the grown-ups.
The New York Times
