Special

Everyone from students to admissions officers focuses on scoresGPAs, SATs, number of IB classes, hours of
community serviceyet there seems to be a general unawarenessor avoidanceof the number of
student suicides on the rise in our neighboring communities. Although these suicides represent
the tragic extreme of the possible effects school-induced pressure can cause, alongside
other contributing factors, the issue of student stress is all too common and must
be addressed. In acknowledgement of a recent suicide at Gunn High
School, the seventh youth suicide in Palo Alto in the past six
years, the Raven Report decided to examine the way
that students at our academically rigorous
school are dealing with stress and
what is being asked
of them.

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Dr. Denise Pope is a Senior

Lecturer at Stanford University and
is the co-founder of Challenge Success, an organization that works with schools to find the best strategies that will allow students to thrive and be challenged in
a healthy way. Eleven years ago, Pope was writing her dissertation on local schools that seemed to be very successful

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Q&A:

Dr. Denise Pope

because students were getting good grades and going to college; however, while shadowing students at these schools, she
saw how stressed they were because of their workload and the
negative effects that came with that. The Raven Report spoke
to Pope about the causes and possible ways to reduce student
stress, and she shared some short and long-term solutions for
teachers and students included in this spread.

How do stress levels affect cheating in high school?

Q: What is your ideal vision for students in the future? Q:
A: Students will say, You know when youre totally exhausted, and youve just done
A: My vision is that every student is healthy, physically and mentally. You cant learn
if youre exhausted, stressed out, having panic and anxiety attacks and struggling
with depression. [After that,] that every student is truly engaged in learning as opposed to [...] doing school and playing the game and doing it to get into college.

Q: What can students do to avoid and cope with stress?

A: One of the things you absolutely want to do is make sure you're getting enough
sleep. The other thing would be to find positive coping strategies that work for
yougo out for a run, do yoga, look into mindfulness or breathing exercises. Maybe
youre the type that needs to take a nap or take a break, get a snack and switch tasks.
A whole bunch of things can be a positive coping strategy, as opposed to a negative
coping strategy like going online to check social media, which will do nothing for
you and often times can actually exacerbate the problem.

Q: What is your opinion on mental health days?

A: Theres this notion that if you need a mental health day, you should take it. One
of the things we do is work to incorporate free periods into the daily schedule [either one to two per week or one every day.] If you have time to get a jump on your
homework, to catch up during a free period, thats sort of like a mental health period
but legitimized and you're not missing any school to do it. I'm sort of hesitant to say,
Oh Im all for it because I want these to be sanctioned by the school, and so maybe
the school says once a quarter everyone gets a mental health day.

three hours of homework, and you have a paper due the next day, and you havent
even started it, youre going to compromise your values. Some of it is just that they
cannot meet the high expectations of their parents or their teachers or they believe
[wrongly] they wont get into college unless they have perfect grades. Stress and sleep
deprivation are definitely connected to cheating.

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Q: How can students find balance between preparing

for college and managing stress?

A: Let me tell you, colleges want that too. College admissions officers dont want the
kids who are totally burnt out and fried from high school. They want kids who are
ready to come to college, who want to learn and be there and who are not the hoop
jumpers. Everybody uses the college thing as an excuse not to make changes or to
overload themselves. Everyone says, Oh when I get in I can have a life. Thats a lie
that I hear a lot.

Q: How can teachers improve stress levels?

A: Really to understand that yes, students do put a lot on their plates and thats not
the teachers fault, but the teacher also has a lot he/she can do to mitigate the stress.
Really coordinating with other teachers, really looking at your students schedules
and saying you know its not going to be perfect, but were going to try and avoid
some major overlaps. I think they can also be really mindful about the amount of
homework they assign on weekends.

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Mental health days provide relaxa

Inbetween after-school jobs, piles of homework and SAT prep, many students find themselves taking mental health days, with some saying they take
over five mental health periods each month.
Some students claim that mental health days do much more good than harm,
providing the time and calm that they need to catch up on work. Despite missing in-class instruction, these days at home can allow students to recuperate and
return to school better rested, ready to process information and participate. At
home, these students have time to catch-up on sleep that theyve been deprived
of lately, with the average senior receiving six and a half hours of sleep per night
compared with the doctor-recommended eight to nine hours.
I cant stay up later, personally. If I have work to do and I dont have enough
time to do it, I have to take a nap and then work, senior Carolyn Burt said. If
I run on little sleep, I get really jittery and I dont concentrate as well. I dont
feel good driving to school, I dont feel confident that Im going to be able to get
through classes and retain the information as well as I would if I took a two hour

nap and skipped one of my classes. Then I would get the information from the
other four classes better.
Taking a mental health period can mean anything from showing up late to
school to leaving early to taking an entire day off, which can mean over 300
missed minutes of class time and a significant amount of make up work.
I like the idea of mental health days, but I want them to be sanctioned by
the school so that youre not having to miss and make up, Stanford Senior
Lecturer Dr. Denise Pope said. Obviously if youre feeling so stressed out and
exhausted that you shouldnt even be driving the vehicle that youre driving to
school, you need to sleep. Health is obviously a priority, so if that one day of
sleeping in and catching up is going to make you feel better and so much more
awake for the following days and assignments and tests, then thats what you
should do, but I would like it to be sanctioned by the school.
Pope has worked with schools to incorporate free periods into student schedules: essentially mental health periods to provide an opportunity to get ahead on

Feature

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Average hours of sleep

tudents get per night:

Hours of
omework each
ight on average

2.5

(These statistics were gathered from a survey

administered to over 300 Sequoia students.)

5
A special feature written by
Editor-in-Chief DALIA JUDE and
Managing Editor CARMEN VESCIA with
graphics by Managing Editor CLAIRE BUGOS

EDITORIAL

Coping should be
school-wide effort

Its common for students to take on unhealthy

from you, but rather choose classes that will both
loads, whether that be self-motivated, asked by
challenge you and allow you to succeed. Think
teachers and parents or expected by colleges, but
about your extracurriculars and what your life will
that doesnt mean that being sleep-deprived and
look like outside of your classes be it college apoverwhelmed should be the norm.
plications, a job or new responsibilities at home.
Students:
Talk to your parents, teachers and counselors about
High school is hard. Preparing for the rest of our
what the best action plan is for you individually.
liveswhile not even being sure if were children
Teachers:
or adults, but being treated like bothcan get the
First of all, thank you for everything that you
best of us sometimes. From household chores to
already do to help us manage our sometimes crazy
hours of daily homework to needing to financially
lives. We know that youre trying prepare us for
support your family, we are left
whatever the future may hold
with little free time and lots of
and that you put an enormous
stress.
amount of thought and effort
A challenging class doesnt
While we have a right and
into planning.
always have to give an hour
reason to be stressed, sometimes
That being said, some homeof homework per night, and
we find ourselves in tears over a
work assignments are valuable
when busy-work piles up,
confusing 10-point homework
and genuinely helpful, but some
work quality usually goes
assignment as a result of accuarent, and as Pope pointed out,
down.
mulated stress from other areas
its sometimes easy to forget that
in our lives.
theres a difference between rigThe purpose of high school
or and load.
is to prepare us for our lives after these four years,
A challenging class doesnt always have to give
but often that goal is lost in sight of the daily presan hour of homework per night, and when busysure to succeed. In cases of anxiety, it is helpful to
work piles up, work quality usually goes down;
think about the big picture.
sometimes students may even feel inclined to cheat
Stanford Senior Lecturer Dr. Denise Pope, an
or put in no effort if they feel like the work theyre
expert on student stress, says that the number one
doing is merely being graded for completion rather
change to alleviate stress is to get more sleep. If you
than quality.
get half an hour to an hour more sleep each night,
Please know that a night off now and then gives
you will start to feel improvements immediately.
us the opportunity to refresh and come to next class
If your stress stems from a potential failing grade
ready to work hard and engage.
and you feel like too much damage has been done,
And for those assignments that really do matter,
talk to your teacher. Teachers want us to succeed,
please give us the time and space we need to put in
and they want to help us. As stressed or scared as
that effort by coordinating with other teachers and
you might be to face your teacher after not turning
departments. Many of you already do this, but the
in any homework all month, it is still the beginning
more who do it consistently, the better. If we have
of the semester and it is never too late to ask for
four big projects and two important tests all due on
helpthey will be glad that you are stepping up
the same day, we wont be able to do our best work
and will work with you to help you.
or get the most out of the work were doing.
Though second semester has just started, it is
Finally, if theres no way around handing out a
almost time for students to sign up for next years
heavy load, it never hurts to acknowledge that a
classes. As you look ahead at what courses will be
lot is being asked of us but that you know we can
offered, dont worry about what colleges will want
handle it.

ation but prove imperfect solution

homework or just take a break in the middle of a rigorous day.
If teachers could build in more ways to associate school with mental health
and relaxation, then students won't need to take whole days off to do that,
science teacher Jessica Magallanes said. For me, when students do that, if they
email me, then we know what's going on, then were good. Its hard when they
just don't come in and refuse to even think about schoolthey can't get caught
up when they come back.
Magallanes tries to build stress management into her class by teaching students positive coping strategies to have an alternative to skipping school when
theyre feeling a lot of pressure.
I just try to be real with them about the stress because a lot of it is external.
You cant change what your parents expect from you or what colleges expect
but you can change how you feel right in that moment, Magallanes said.
What were [saying] right now is that if you're stressed at work,
just don't go in, and thats not a healthy habit for people

to get into.
A decision to take a day off and catch upwith the catch of falling behind
yet againis one that is only a short-term solution for a long-term problem of
stress, especially at a school like Sequoia that offers rigorous course loads such
as the IB Diploma.
Theres a lot of stress, but at the same time, it comes with the
territory, and its nothing that people cant deal with if as
long as they have the help and support of their
community that Sequoia does a really good job of having,
Burt said.

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