Academic Stress (and bullying) in Senior High School
By James Travers-Murison
1. What are the causes of stress?
There are two basic approaches to stress. One is biological and the other psychological. The biological sees stress as an individual’s response to an event. This focuses on the effects of the environment on an individual’s physiological and endocrinal response. The psychological perspective according to Lazarus theory views stress in terms of “the interaction between an individual’s cognitive-mediational processes and the stressful situations (environment)” (Phillips, 1993, p.38). Stress results when the person exceeds their resources in appraising their ability to cope. Firstly they appraise the situation and secondly they evaluate what they can do. Where the person believes (realistically or not) that they will have difficulties coping with the situation, stress results.
I was subjected to stress at an early age. In secondary school, I went to Melbourne Grammar where the academic pressure was very intense. I sought to achieve as best I could and subsequently came near the top of the classes I was in. Ironically enough even in such an academic school I was nonetheless bullied for working too hard by the less academic and was also even degraded by the more academic students who felt threatened in such a competitive environment.
My entry into Melbourne Grammar was in Year 7. At Grimwade, almost from the first day I was attacked verbally by other students. I soon realised that being rich or from the establishment had very little to do with loving behaviour, if anything the opposite. I had my primary schooling in a small mid-range private school where the students were much kinder - Trinity. But in Grammar the teaching staff were ruthless and the academic standard considerably higher. They enforced this rate of learning through violence. Chalk was thrown hard into Year 7 and 8 students faces without regard to the potential of possibly blinding a student. Rigid silence enforced in the classroom, which in year 7 resulted in class detentions virtually every afternoon. Like Pavlov's dogs a system of blue and red stars was used to reward or punish students. As is symptomatic in such a system students became stereotyped and labeled creating division in the form of favourites and rebels, who then became caught in these self belief labels many of whom could not extract themselves from, again resulting in considerable stress either from having to live up to their glory or having to escape their reputation.
Sporting prowess was very much pressured in Melbourne Grammar. Those, like myself, who were of a more gentle nature, were again labeled as rejects, picked last in humiliating line ups and so forth. Muscle and aggression were admired and encouraged in sporting activity as long as it was directed to winning the game. Again considerable stress resulted on students trying to live up to the star status put on them by the school, but also stress resulted from feelings of inadequacy on those that were labeled as incompetent. Often by the other students, but reinforced in many ways by the teachers themselves. This damage to self esteem often reinforced beliefs in the student that they were worthless or there was something wrong with them because they had been labeled as uncoordinated; often this was simply a case of having not been taught the skills adequately or not finding the right sport for them. Yet the results of this labelling had significant impact on long term self esteem and self efficacy - all of which impacted upon student stress and motivation to perform both in the academic and sporting arenas.
The psychological bullying reached a peak in Year 10 where the verbal attacks became homosexual. The fact it was single sex seemed to result in unnatural attractions between the boys - a lack of balance in their behaviour. In particular, the fact I was very much attracted to females not males, caused much unnecessary suffering as a result of these attacks, though for a boy who was homosexual this form of bullying could in fact be devastating to their sexual self concept. These attacks were often made in the classroom without any rebuke or protection from the teachers. They caused considerable stress, resulting in suicidal ideation as a result of self doubt in my sexuality. The school staff did nothing to protect students from this and in several instances joined in the teasing attacks. The house system which revolved round sporting competition mostly in the school reinforced this bullying, as those not performing well in sport were often ostracised for their lack of interest - again encouraged by the teachers. The attempt to build team spirit failed because it was done through coercion and fear, based upon a nebulous form of school honour that was couched in elitism gained through aggression. In a word gentleness in the form of unconditional love had no place in Grammar. People that displayed these characteristics were clearly labelled 'weak poofters'. Hence a form of homophobia was interlaced with the machismo brutality emanating from the prefects, students and often the staff themselves - some of whom were closet homosexuals and by some accounts actually had relationships with the boys. Ironically enough not with the 'weak poofters' but the sporting heroes. Of course coeducation does not guarantee a resolution to this problem and can bring other problems with it, such as those eventually exposed in Wesley with the tennis coach having sexual relations with female students - with consequential devastating affects on the students.
My refusal to participate, if possible in house sports and functions, and to simply study, produced a kind of ostracism by the boys in the house that was encouraged by the masters. Virtually nothing was done to enquire about my mental health, despite the fact the house master knew my parents were going through a divorce and my clothing due to my mother's neglect and partial nervous breakdown was close to rags, such that I was nicknamed 'mess'. The few times I joined in peer group discussions at recess, I was singled out and attacked with such spiteful venom, usually in relation to my studying hard, that I simply isolated myself in the library during breaks. My sensitivity meant I was effectively forced to avoid participation in an holistic education. I was isolated into academic study in a way for self protection. The thread of brutal ruthlessness in most of the school activities whether it be acting, debating, sport, music, art or whatever lent itself to a sort of sneering superiority from the students that dominated - an elitism that was encouraged by most of the staff. This admiration of competitiveness, of brutality, of rivalry, of looking down on others rather than cooperating and including them, of encouraging them with sensitivity of their limitations and capabilities, was a distinct feature of the schools modus operandi.
Twenty years or more later when I taught there as a student teacher there had been improvements. However in the legal studies and history Year 11 classes I taught, that same brutal arrogance and crushing down remarks was prevalent still in the students and staff. The same pressured fear in relation to getting high marks, the same nervousness to cram information in for tests and exams, not out of joy of learning but out of competitive desire to outperform their classmates. And the rivalry, the bitter rivalry to gain a higher grade than a friend or enemy was as ruthless as ever. Often combined with a basic disinterest in the curriculum itself or little deep understanding or motivation as to the point of the academic work and little concern if the work was not assessed. Convoluted questions were posed to trick the teacher and delay learning, as another by product of showing off to class mates - symptomatic of the underlying ruthless aggressive capitalist elitist mentality that comfortably saw themselves as superior and richer than the vast bulk of the population. This attitude in fact was a display of subconscious stress factors in the student, often caused by an inability to see the purpose of the learning subject matter or an indicator of having difficulties understanding the material in the class. This stress in the student therefore inflicted itself upon the teacher as well. Often this was because at a core level the curriculum was inappropriate for the students and was inundated upon them.
The school still streamed its maths classes though to a lesser degree by dividing the classes into two equal streams and has adopted combined year 9 and 10 classes, and uses the Harkness system to increase oral participation in classes. There is no doubt the school takes education very seriously and is innovative in trying new methods. But like the education system as a whole they they are caught in a curriculum and methodology that is inherently flawed because it is not holistic and cooperative, but still classical and competitive. Back in the early 1980s the competition to get into the top sets in the school and within the top sets was ruthless. In one instance in the top maths set in HSC, when I came near the top of the class early in the term yet before had always been in the second or third set, I was set upon by the boys. Verbally attacked and my paper ripped from me, with one top student almost in tears saying it must have been a mistake and 'how could that idiot get that mark'. The result was that I tumbled back to bottom of the set after their successful attempt to crush me down. The teacher again did not effectively stop the students aggressive behaviour to demean me. Self esteem is a very delicate animal and Grammar failed to adequately protect across the board in almost all areas of school life.
Another failing of Grammar in the 1980s was in arranging seating in classes. It became another vital competition to get a seat next to a good student, or a friend, because the teachers generally left it to the students to sit where they pleased. Or else alphabetically ordered the seating. The teachers put little thought into looking at individual needs of the students and directing the seating on this basis - for instance putting less capable students with bright students to assist them. Poor seating arrangements often contributed to student and classroom/teacher stress. In Year 12 Chemistry this had very detrimental consequences for myself when I was left out in the grab for seats, being not particularly assertive and was relegated with one of the worst students in the class when I myself was struggling. My performance suffered academically as well as giving rise to high stress levels, increased difficulty in understanding the material and friction between myself and the teacher - giving rise to one instance where he described my work as 'a dog could do better'. I was reduced to tears when I lost an assignment that was part of the HSC grade and asked for an extension to locate it, and he ruthlessly declined it - to be fair when I started crying he gave me the extension. His aggressive humiliation of students was supported by a violent competitiveness telling us to 'be killers' and finally threatening to punch any student who did not get an A in the finals. His name was Byron Jones, a Welsh man who was finally let go by the school and went on to St Catherines where he had an affair with a female student and was sacked. Can old Byron be blamed, he was simply a product of his Welsh education and Grammars Chemistry department under fire and brimstone Dr Withers. The culprit was not him it was the education system itself that put such a massive burden to perform on 17 and 18 year olds which would determine their lives' career in many instances. The stress was inflicted in part by Grammar's determination to get the highest grades possible for its students, which the parents demanded and paid for, and secondly and more importantly by a failed infrastructure problem in the education system. That of putting so much weight on a child's future through one set of exams. A redistribution of the grading system to take into account the child's entire senior school performance, and a rethink of tertiary education to adopt the American system of a general degree at university before specialisation in careers, would alleviate much pressure on students and probably also have an impact in reducing ancillary factors like youth suicide due to academic stress. This would also give the young apprentices further time to determine more accurately what career path for their lives would be most appropriate and beneficial based on obtaining a higher degree of academic ability and social maturity at university before entering professional studies such as medicine and law. Pre-med and pre-law would of course be available at university in a generalist sense.
Despite straight As in year 11 and entering all the top sets in maths, physics and chemistry, in my HSC year events and my own mental state underwent a change that had been building up for some years. The added stress of HSC and my own biological development turned on each other. Since year 9 I spent all my spare time studying such that I had no social life and very few friends, in a family which had gone through a painful divorce, where my mother had trouble paying the school fees due to inadequate maintenance support. But by year 12 my physiology had caught up with me and I was questioning the point of academic knowledge without any social interaction. My academic performance began to spiral almost immediately. The lack of females in the school and the general isolation I was in due to my peers brutality had reached a breaking point at the worst time - the year when the results determined your future career. The massive academic pressure in that year reinforced by now being in all the top sets in one of the most pressured academic schools in Australia, combined with a sudden sense of loss of self based on the school's criteria of success and the biological needs of a 17 year old, produced 'at risk' levels of stress. My sense of sexual identity having been viciously and falsely attacked as homosexual in the all male school, yet having no female association due to this and the fact that my family had fallen apart and had cut themselves off from friends who may have had daughters of a similar age, resulted in an unnatural isolation from the opposite gender. I tried to resolve this by attending a private school Christian youth group RAP in Year 11 and 12. However due to my intense shyness I remained isolated, but on a camp in the third term, I fell in love with a girl who had befriended me. Unfortunately she had a boyfriend she was in love with. My desire was so strong that I ignored this fact. I walked into a room in the camp and discovered them making love. It seems unbelievable, but the next day I asked for her phone number and rung her up later in the week asking her out. She rejected me, and for two to three weeks during the most crucial time for studying for the HSC exams I could barely work.
I obtained my HSC with high Bs by forcing myself to study. However a part of my body must have rebelled for I developed a disease in one eye called keriticonus and lost significant vision. I went on to study law at Monash, got my articles in a good law firm, then worked in London. I saw a psychiatrist for a couple of years during my degree, seemed to resolve most issues and was living with a girlfriend. However at the age of 27 I began to re-question my world view and ‘dropped out’ so to speak of conventional society. I spent two years in India travelling and seeking spiritual enlightenment, doing psychotherapy group work at Bhagwan Rajneesh’s ashram in Puna. I began smoking marijuana, came back to Australia a virtual hippie and ended up in communes up the east coast in a magic mushroom haze. I was finally sectioned for walking round naked in a national park and was taken by the police to Cairns Base Hospital at age 31.
For the next thirteen years I battled with mental illness and chronic depression mostly being on welfare. Psychiatrists could not accurately diagnose me, some said a personality disorder, others schizophrenia, others bipolar, others depression and some said there was nothing wrong with me. I tried medication but due to my beliefs in natural health I would discontinue almost immediately. I survived, alone and without work, often in poverty, constantly moving from city to town to different state. I attempted to start businesses I knew almost nothing about. I tried to go back and study. I even went back to India to see if enlightenment could be obtained.
I was caught in a seeming hell. My spiritual beliefs rejected this world’s vices, I had given up all intoxicants was strict vegetarian, endeavoured to follow a Buddhistic dharma, practised yoga and even in a way believed in Jesus. Yet in a way this put me in an even greater conflict with the world that generally did not accept this way of life. The spiritual communities I visited gave little relief, did not seem to answer the questions and in a way felt phoney.
In an attempt to stabilise myself and contribute to society I began a diploma of education in Canberra. Conflicting with the teaching staff I was asked to leave my first placement and quit. With a few exceptions, student apathy throughout the High School confirmed my opinion that the education system provided a boring and unhappy place to be where students saw little relevance in what they studied. Those that were interested crammed for the final exams, their prime motivation being obtaining the marks to get into tertiary study.
In completing my diploma at ACU, I taught at two private schools. At De La Salle Malvern the students even at VCE level showed few signs of stress, though this was early in the year. In years 9 and 10 motivation and discipline was a problem. However in Melbourne Grammar some of the VCE students did show signs of stress. One student came to me shaking asking for an extension for an assignment. I was told by the supervising teacher that half a grade would be lost for each day late without exception. Regretfully, partly due to the pressure I was under as a teacher not happy with what and how I was being told to teach, I succumbed to my supervisor's wishes and told him this and he did not appear at school for the next 2 days. During classes I noticed he was having difficulties comprehending the concepts and taking the study far too seriously; in an unbalanced manner for instance trying to copy other students work or my hidden answer sheet. He was displaying symptoms of high level stress, acting irrationally putting too much emphasis on copying a correct result rather than thinking through the problems, yet due to the whole mentality that pervaded the school and our education system, I failed to respond to this and assist him, due to pressure to teach twenty students many whom were disruptive and more importantly the whole aggressive competitive nature of the school. A deeper look at his stress issues may have revealed an underlying cause similar to myself, in that a lack of female integration in his young life and need to experience love, could have been the root cause to his problems. Problems that were at the core of the school's aggressive chauvenistic mentality and gave rise to a disbalance in behaviour that the more aggressive students took out in brutal bravado, untempered by having to face the female aspect of themselves - in the form of the physical living representation in the same classroom. This poor lad was simply an archetype manifesting the symptoms of the disease of an age old paternalism based on religious bigotry to and suppression of the female inherent in the Christian church. A good year 12 student who I used to talk to on the tram, one day looked exhausted, breath bad and clothes a mess, he was trying to memorise notes on the tram. When I spoke to him I could feel his stress, he was doing SACs that day. This all made me feel little had changed since I had been at the school despite the rhetoric of co-operative student centred learning.
In Year 11 Legal Studies, which was taught using the Harkness method in part, the students tended to be very noisy, would not raise their hands to speak, rudely answered back often with smart alec remarks, would try and side track with irrelevant questions, played with their laptops, would speak over the teacher (some persistently so). I had a policy of not removing the students from the class which was severely criticised by my supervising teacher, O'Meara, also an old boy (who introduced the Harkness method and very much to my regret left the school). I attempted to teach them to the highest standard possible having been a solicitor and working in tax law in the top accounting firms in the world, including in London. I taught them Sports Law as the Olympics were on in Athens. There tended to be an arrogant sense of superiority displayed in the students; the same vindictive comments were made to other students and the same aggressive competition with marks as I had experienced at Grammar were still occurring. In this respect I noticed the same form of bullying as I had experienced there many years ago. Students ostracising students who were not as aggressive and forceful in the class. This aggressive attitude in the students seemed still to be accepted and if anything reinforced by the school - in fact O'Meara was in part guilty of this by encouraging a witty repartee between the students and himself. This caused difficulties in teaching and learning for the teacher and students. This attitude increased my stress levels as a teacher enormously. But as a corollary, students were also affected by this attitude or environment, making them harder to deal with and reducing academic learning, and in the end giving rise to symptoms of stress in them. Largely when they realise they have not prepared adequately for the assessment papers. In history classes it was another story. Peter Newbury, he seldom let me teach, adopted the entertaining lecturer style of anecdotes from his huge reservoir of knowledge. Yet he too suffered a form of stress from this hierarchical teaching style that often left little involvement for the students who often would switch off, only to be swiftly attacked by him for doing so.
Why had I felt so stressed teaching VCE students there? Res ipsa loquitur.
2. Does academic pressure cause stress on students?
Phillips (1993 p.11) says that “there has been a growing concern that well-meaning efforts to prepare students better academically may be excessively stress inducing and in some ways misdirected. Although some students are benefiting, others are becoming psychological casualties, as reflected in statistics concerning school failure, substance abuse, delinquency, suicide, irresponsible sexual behaviour and dropout among adolescents. Paradoxically, the strong academic demands of the present educational climate could result in few increases in learning and instead exacerbate current stress-related problems and lead to further alienation among students.” He refers Eisner’s research in 1988 to substantiate this and to Forman & O’Malley’s research that showed disabling stress was severely impacting on 30% of school age students. Phillips implies that individual disabilities and risk factors when combined with environmental stressors leads to psychological problems.
3. Why does academic pressure cause stress for students in the classroom?
The answer in part lies in the syllabus which deluges students in content that they see little relevance to in their own lives (Lawrence, p.54). Bored, they switch off in the class, then fearing the consequences of getting low grades from their parents, cram for any assignments which count towards assessment. Because often they have not listened due to lack of motivation they have problems completing the assignment. This gives rise to an inability to do the work and so stress. Struggling students rather than hand in poor quality work will sometimes delay doing the assignment creating a cycle of stress. ‘This cry for help’ is often ignored by the teachers who penalise them further and brand them as lazy. This is not always the case as some students do want to work but can’t do assignments because of their lack of understanding (Phillips p.25). The teacher is stressed trying to teach content that does not motivate the students, often having to fight for their attention and then deal with their subsequent inability to understand the concepts as shown by their assessment task. This makes the teacher less sympathetic to the stressed student and a vicious cycle ensues (Lawrence, pp135-141). My supervising teacher wanted me to resolve this by disciplining the students by threatening them which I avoided doing. Consequently the classes were disruptive with inefficient learning, however my point was that I did not want to reinforce learning by negative stimuli based on fear, instead I wanted to focus on positive encouragement. I did not want to induce student stress by my teaching method yet indirectly this still resulted.
4. What solutions are there to reduce this form of stress?
The consequences are an unhappy education system, that whilst producing academic results does so at a human emotional cost, which can have devastating long term consequences as I in a way exemplified. Longitudinal research in Hawaii has shown that student stress and mental illness developing later in life is much reduced in students who have high resilience factors and these are largely based upon having a balanced holistic upbringing where social life and in particular close friends and loving kind role models act as guides (Werner, 1989). However Jones (p.87) suggests that research has not shown a clear link between stress in the environment and mental illness apart from depression. She implies genetic predisposition is the cause though considers stress could be a trigger.
Beck’s schema theory suggests that if someone feels threatened in their immediate environment “they will incorporate the current environmental stimuli into their pre-existing schema of threatening stimuli (thus) … depressed people have schemas that influence them to process information in a negative way” (Jones, p.92). Negative punishment to control a class has been shown to be not as effective as positive reinforcement (Zajda, Ch. 1).
The solution has to revolve around the syllabus. It needs to be less content orientated and more teaching students’ skills about how to best learn and deal with information. Interactionists say knowledge is actively constructed by humans through interaction with the environment. Cognitive structures or schemata are continually modified by assimilation, accommodation and equilibration. Assimilation is adapting by altering information to fit in with existing schemata. Accommodation is the modification of existing schemata to add new information. Equilibration provides a balance. Therefore it is essential to understand the existing cognitive schemata of each student and teach them according to what will best modify that schema. The student’s prior mental state and the teacher’s interaction with it is therefore the most essential requirement to learning, more so than the content of what is to be taught.
This interactionist approach will be far more useful to them in the long term than teaching a mass of facts. However transactionists go a step further considering the:-
- Nature of person-environment relationships: elements versus aspects. Aspect is a concept that looks at a particular view rather than an independent separate entity – an element. Contextual elements are considered to interfere with laws of human behaviour, yet it is argued that context is essential to understanding phenomena. Extensional and durational processes bring together the separate elements via transactions.
- Role of the social environment: active humans transacting with an equally active social environment, as opposed to the neutral environment of the interactionists. Construction of knowledge is complex psychological intra-action mediated by social interaction.
- Mediating function of communication: symbolic interaction is a process where humans develop lines of action. Indicating what one wishes to learn and interpreting the indications of others are symbolic actions shown through gesture and speech. Dialogical communication where all meaning is shared is essential to being – Bakhtin.
- Reciprocal nature of learning: Social transaction is developed prior to the mind. As the individual adjusts to the environment he changes and vice versa the environment changes – so there is a reciprocal relationship between each organism and the environment.
Once this social environment relationship of transaction is recognised and responded to then students feel that what they are being taught is relevant to them and beneficial then research has shown that “motivation” increases exponentially and discipline together with both teacher and student stress levels diminish proportionately (Zajda, Ch 1).
5. Conclusion – Is a holistic approach the solution?
Stress seems to be a combination of parental pressure to do well, teacher and school pressure to perform beyond the proximal zone of development of the student (or what they believe they can cope with) and the student’s desire to meet their own internal set of objectives and standard be that realistic or not (Phillips, p.38). Added to this pressure cooker is the student’s relationship with his family, his peers and his own developing physiology and desire for the opposite sex where the interrelationship between student and school needs a “goodness of fit” (Phillips, p.108). If these are not adequately addressed and balanced then stress usually results. Phillips (p.15) points to research by Nelson that shows a socio-emotionally supportive environment increases mentally healthy levels of perception, leads to a sense of belonging and self-respect, a fundamental goal of all behaviour. A holistic approach to education should provide the correct balance of enjoying learning by providing engaging content at the classes’ level of ability and having a fulfilling and happy social life. In the case of Melbourne Grammar this could well be achieved by amalgamating with Merton Hall and putting less emphasis on academic achievement and more on the learning process and enjoying it. The solution it appears may well lie in a complete rethink of the education system. UOCA's system of using meditation and yoga in the class, I believe, and evidence supports this, that stress levels are vastly reduced in student and teacher. Academic performance increases due to increased concentration and improved student behaviour. By creating a more peaceful environment that is cooperative rather than competitive, all participants gain. Individual plans for each student in both academic tuition and advancement in yogic practices regularly appraised by psychologists and experts in yoga would reinforce this new method to determine its effectiveness.
Bibliography
Articles pertaining to the four readings are highlighted in bold.
Chase, N (1999). Burdened Child. Theory research and treatment of Parentification. Thousand Oaks: SAGE
Greenman, J (2002) What happened to the World? Helping Children Cope in Turbulent Times. Castle Hill : Pandemelon Press
Jones, F. (2001) Stress: Myth, Theory, and Research. Harlow: Pearson. Stress Health and Illness Ch. 4 and Cognition Stress and Anxiety Ch. 5
Lawrence, J, Steed D and Young P (1984). Disruptive Children, Disruptive Schools. Kent: Croom Helm.
Phillps, B. (1993) Educational and Psychological Perspectives on Stress. Vermont : CPPC. Particularly Ch. 1-3
Quenk, N. (2002) How everyday stress brings out our hidden personality, Was that really me? Palo-Alto : Davies-Black.
Rabber, M. (1993) Managing Stress for Mental Fitness. Menlo Park: Crisp
Werner, E (1989) High risk children in young adulthood: A longitudinal study
