Stress Less, Laugh More week highlights bigger problem at Jefferson
Students partake in yoga as part of Stress Less, Laugh More week. Photo by Sandy Cho.
May 1, 2014
As is the usual tradition, the week before Advanced Placement (AP) exams has been designated Stress Less, Laugh More week by Jefferson’s Active Minds club. While the club is doing all it can to alleviate stress from students, it really lies on the administration’s and the teachers’ shoulders to make these few weeks bearable in the least for Jefferson students.
Active Minds is doing a good job accomplishing all they can do for the week. Led by school psychologist Greg Myers, the club organizes many stress-relieving events throughout the week, such as yoga, meditation, therapy dogs and movie screenings.
In addition to activities, students are encouraged to commit random acts of kindness and to spread the theme of the week, which is more important than the actual activities.
Perhaps the only issue with the club during the week is that it lasts only one week. If this was to happen multiple times throughout the year, or there were more similar events regularly, the effects of the week would be more widespread.
However, the fact that we need to have such a week is a bigger problem. With AP exams quickly approaching, many teachers are both teaching new material and reviewing the year’s work. In addition to the four, five or upwards of six hours of such homework a night, many classes have had their finals recently.
If students stay up all night to finish every last point of work, they clearly have their priorities wrong and are overworked. Students’ health and well being should not have to be trivialized. As such, students have been overly stressed for the past few weeks and will continue to be so for the duration of May. The burden thus lies on the teachers and administration to try to spread out the work and to attempt to lessen the stress and importance of each assignment.
Should Jefferson be a walk in the park? Absolutely not. That said, Stress Less, Laugh More should be embraced by more than pins on clothes and eighth period activities in order to best serve Jefferson’s over-worked and over-stressed student body.
