Educating Teachers on the Warning Signs: Mental Health

Introduction

The concept of mental health has been stigmatized for centuries, and because of this negative ideology behind it, those who are suffering are not getting the proper care they need. Even though mental health is becoming more accepted and resources are more available, many students have teachers or parents who are still not understanding of these issues. This discrepancy between increased availability of resources with an unaccepting environment can cause the mentally ill to feel out of place or helpless. 

Students who live with mental illnesses struggle with themselves throughout their day, from the moment they wake up to the time they go to sleep, causing school to be an added stressor to their lives. Depending on the issue itself, students may experience things such as lack of sleep/concentration/attention, decrease in motivation to do school work or go to school as a whole, decrease in social interaction, etc, which all can lead to falling behind in school. 

According to an article written by Frontiers In, students who have mental illnesses are “four times more likely to report low academic self-efficacy and two times more likely to report delayed study progress.” These statistics refer to common symptoms of mental illnesses, such as lack of motivation and concentration. 

Teachers don’t fully understand how much of an impact they can make on a student and their school day. Students spend the majority of their time in school and with their teachers, meaning that teachers should be doing what they can to make a difference within each student during that time. If teachers were more educated about the warning signs of mental health issues and how those illnesses can affect a student’s academic performance, significant changes could be made in order to better the students’ chances at succeeding in school. 

A simple idea for educating teachers is creating mandatory workshops about students’ mental health and mental health as a whole. Teachers convention week is an important time during a teachers’ career. Implementing an additional workshop where teachers can learn about the symptoms and effects of mental illnesses on students, along with what they can do to help their students who are suffering could help tremendously. 

Teachers should complete more mental health training in order to be better educated and aware of mental health issues within their students. With this increase in education, teachers can better understand the struggle of being a student with mental illnesses, leading to new techniques being used within the classroom to help put students’ minds to rest. 

 

BP 1 : Mental Health Issues and Symptoms

The most common mental illnesses that students are battling are depression and anxiety. Even though both illnesses have some similar symptoms, a common phrase used to understand the difference between the two is “anxiety is worrying about failing, but depression is not having the motivation to succeed”. According to an article written by “Mayo Clinic”, people suffering with depression may experience symptoms such as excessive tiredness/insomnia, lack of motivation or interest in activities they used to enjoy, slowness in activities, lack of concentration and self-isolation. (Mayo Clinic Depression, 2020) Similar to depression, people with anxiety can experience lack of concentration, hopelessness, racing thoughts, and restlessness (Mayo Clinic Anxiety, 2020).

 

BP 2: How Mental Health Affects Students’ Performance

Because of these detrimental, and sometimes disabling, symptoms, school can seem like a burden to students. Suffering students struggle to even get out of bed in the morning, let alone go to school and try to learn. Between the lack of energy and motivation, students can struggle to concentrate and grasp the information they are being presented. 

 

A symptom of depression that is not talked about enough is memory loss. Since depression is linked to lack of concentration, students can actually experience short-term memory loss in addition to the symptoms previously mentioned. “Health Line” goes into detail about this issue by stating, “depression has been linked to memory problems, such as forgetfulness or confusion. It can also make it difficult to focus on work or other tasks, make decisions, or think clearly.” (Scaccia, 2019) Because of this, students already have the short end of the stick because they are not able to remember what they are being taught.

 

BP 3: What Teachers Can Do/Education Options for Teachers

One of the easiest ways to get the ball rolling with educating teachers on students’ mental health is to create mandatory workshops for them to go to. The best way to implement this is to take advantage of “Teachers Convention Week”. During this time, teachers are already going to workshops in order to enhance their teaching skills and lessons, so why not add one about the warning signs of mental health issues and how to help students with those issues?

 

Along with mandatory workshops, schools can implement their own workshops if they deem it necessary. A study done by “Online Library” talks about how lower status students are at a predisposition to mental illnesses. They introduce this idea by stating how “people of the lowest socioeconomic status are estimated to be two to three times as likely to have a mental disorder than are those with the highest socioeconomic status.” (Kim & Cho, 2020) So schools who have students of lower socioeconomic statuses can enforce additional workshops for teachers since there is a higher rate of students with mental health illnesses. The workshop during “Teachers Convention Week” would still be mandatory in order to learn the importance of mental health, but if schools/teachers don’t see an alarming rate of mentally ill students, then they don’t have to enforce additional education. 

 

BP4: Putting What They Learned into Action

When learning about the symptoms and warning signs of mental illnesses within their students, teachers should also be taught on what they can do if they observe the signs within a student(s). 

Some easy examples of concepts teachers can use within their classroom is as follows:

Be Empathetic and Understanding

With mental illnesses within students’ on a rapid increase, students may need a mental health day or won’t have the motivation to get school work done. Students, especially college students, experience mental burnout daily from overworking themselves. Teachers need to be understanding of this and more lenient with assignment deadlines. Some of the biggest side effects of mental illnesses is lack of attention and engagement, especially for those suffering with depression (Clark, 2021). An article written by Inside Government Blog wrote that “students facing anxiety or depression may feel unable to go into lectures or seminars or unable to face the social interaction that comes with daily university life” (Clark, 2021). Depression and anxiety can make it hard for students to get out of bed, let alone go to class and learn complicated concepts. 

In addition to this, as previously stated, students can experience memory loss, resulting in a decreased ability to retain information. Leniency would be very important in this regard since the memory loss can cause the students to take longer to learn concepts being taught to them. 

 

Check Up on Students

Asking someone “are you okay?”, even if they just say they’re fine, goes a long way. Since mental health has such a stigma against it, some people are used to hiding what they are feeling on the inside, so if someone looks like they’re having a rough day, be there for them. 

 

Be a Safe Place for Students to Come to 

Nothing is more exciting for a student than walking into their favorite teacher’s class. Talking to teachers is like a form of therapy for students and it’s nice getting advice from an adult who isn’t their parent but has still probably been through what they’ve been through. Letting students know that they have support and someone to talk to when they need to is a great way to let them know that their behavior isn’t going unnoticed.

Engaging students in conversation and creating a bond with them is a great way to help with their mental health. Inside Government Blog mentions how important support networks and friends are by stating, “students facing mental health risks can often very quickly become less sociable or less interested in making new friends or building relationships,” (Clark, 2021). One of the biggest symptoms within mental illnesses is self-isolation. It can be hard for students with illnesses to get the courage or energy to socialize, so giving them the little push, but not too hard, that they need can help them get back on their feet.

 

Conclusion:

Mental health is as difficult to live with as a physical illness and without a proper support system or care, those issues can become harder and harder to treat. Since students spend the majority of their time in school and learning, teachers need to know what they can do in order to facilitate the learning experience and ease their mind. Teachers are meant to not only education students, but make a difference in their journey to success, so what’s a better way to make an impact than to help them fight their demons one day at a time?

Work Cited:

Clark, C. (2021, May 24). How does poor mental health affect students? 6 key impacts. Inside Government Blog. https://blog.insidegovernment.co.uk/higher-education/how-does-mental-health-affect-students 

 

Kim, Y.-M., & Cho, S.-il. (2020, May 17). Socioeconomic status, work‐life … – wiley online library. Socioeconomic status, work-life conflict, and mental health. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajim.23118 

 

Kuhfeld, M., Soland, J., Lewis, K., & Morton, E. (2022, March 3). The pandemic has had devastating impacts on learning. what will it take to help students catch up? Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2022/03/03/the-pandemic-has-had-devastating-impacts-on-learning-what-will-it-take-to-help-students-catch-up/

 

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2018, May 4). Anxiety disorders. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/anxiety/symptoms-causes/syc-20350961 

 

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2018, February 3). Depression (major depressive disorder). Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/symptoms-causes/syc-20356007 

 

Minnesota Department of Health. (2020, June 16). Tips and resources for children and parents during COVID-19. Tips and Resources for Children and Parents During COVID-19. Retrieved March 25, 2022, from https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/mentalhealth/children 

 

Scaccia, A. (2019, September 13). Depression and memory loss: Know the facts. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/depression-and-memory-loss