By Brianna Tong,
Staff Writer
With rising omicron cases, students had to take finals during an exceptionally stressful time. Many were studying arduously to ensure that they would receive the highest grades possible while worrying about their safety. Forcing students to participate in finals during a time of constant fear for their health and safety was unreasonable.
In the past few weeks, many students were absent due to COVID-19 exposure. An abundance of absences made carrying out finals in a conventional fashion a difficult task. Teachers faced their share of stress as they tackled the problem of distributing finals to students both in-person and at home. They had to devise exam methods for the different groups so that there would not be any discrepancies.
Additionally, students faced their own set of challenges. Finals lead to stress, anxiety and sleep deprivation, which are all factors that harm students’ mental health. These issues remain unfortunately prevalent, and the omicron variant brought a fresh wave of anxiety to student life. Psychologists ascribe the high rates of mental health problems partly to worries about the virus. According to the American Psychological Association, “81% of Gen Z teens have experienced more intense stress during the COVID-19 pandemic.” It’s clear that mental health is deteriorating as a result of the health crisis, and it is difficult for high schoolers to focus and study for exams when they’re in constant distress. The unreasonable situation that students experienced in this past finals season prevented them from focusing on their mental wellbeing.
These days, it may seem like the topic of mental health is a scapegoat for issues we encounter, but it’s much deeper than that. The competitive atmosphere of high schools already generates stress and anxiety amongst students. The pandemic continues to affect students’ mental health, making it hard to promote self-care. Instead of clinging to a traditional finals format, students need the leniency that some teachers offered last semester. So long as the pandemic continues, staff should be cognizant of student mental health by making finals less impactful.
Several teachers were mindful of student struggles and took the initiative by offering a multitude of options when it came to finals, in order to help soothe students’ fears. Some teachers have decided to only input their students’ final grades into the grade book if it helped their grade, not hurt it. Others chose to curve scores or score finals leniently and others even went as far as canceling finals for this semester as a whole. From a student’s standpoint, these alternatives gave space to prioritize mental health and should be more common as they help assist students in times of distress.
Schools can achieve this in a multitude of ways. Allowing students to have an open-book testing format would help them to better comprehend the information they’ve learned during the semester. Open book examinations give students more versatility when it comes to academics. According to The Journal of Effective Teaching, students are more likely to absorb the information on a long-term scale, rather than rapidly memorize information and forget it all after the exams. This way, instead of having students tirelessly study minuscule details of a subject, they are able to use that time to rest and focus on their mental health.
Students need support during this pandemic, and the measures that several teachers made in regards to finals were a strong first step towards ensuring that stress would not overburden students. It’s important to make sure that we continue to prioritize mental health in especially stressful times. We should be mindful of this and make sure that finals aren’t counterproductive to students’ mental health and academic experience.