Due to my enrollment as a student in a teaching program, I pride myself on the ability to see both student and teacher perspectives on a variety of issues. With emphasis on my "student" viewpoint, I feel as though it's necessary to highlight the redefinition of student wellbeing post-pandemic. I wish to inform readers about this topic since many students faced varying waves of stress during the past school year, particularly with regards to their given workload and adapting to the change of a virtual learning format. Understanding how students were affected by these changes can help us as educators make sense of student wellbeing going forward.
It's no secret that students this past year were more academically unmotivated than ever before. Between the "second wave" of mental health crises rising (such as generalized anxiety disorder and clinical depression) that the pandemic brought with newfound social isolation and/or "the new normal," to a seemingly excessive workload that students were balancing, to the stress faced at home with high unemployment rates and fear of COVID-19 spread to older loved ones. Student wellbeing was no joke during the past year, and it is to my belief that not all teachers were aware of and took action to aid in these tough times.
Personally, I had some professors do "mental health checks" this past year which I absolutely loved. It gave me some time to tell my professor (either anonymously or not) how I'm doing and put my thoughts into words. Some of my professors would take these mental health checks seriously and realize how their class effected my wellbeing, however I felt as though a number of professors would overlook how both myself and other students were feeling in their class and kept assigning work regardless. Although my own experience, as well as my peers' experiences validating my opinions with similar viewpoints, I feel as though I speak for all students who felt overwhelmed by an intense workload.
Although student mental health should've always been at the forefront of curriculum design, I strongly feel as though that it should be of the utmost importance going into the future. In seeing how students were incredibly drained by the end of this past school year, it should be vowed by educators to be conscious of their given workload going forward, as well as in curriculum planning to craft courses that foster meaningful learning while at a proper pace (if that's where the stressors stem from). In my future as an educator, I will vow to put my students' mental health first. By this I will utilize mental health checks, as well as listening to my students with regards to workload and understanding of material in a given amount of time, as it's my job to be aware that my class isn't the only course they're taking, or the only thing going on in their lives.
Image Source: https://critpath.org/health-information/mental-health/
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