Sitting at my desk looking down towards the math assignment I was given in fourth period, my mind starts to wonder. I don't actually want to do this assignment. I barely know how to do it. After about ten minutes of wondering what happens to all of my missing socks I finally get up and go ask my dad for help. He laughs “I don't remember how to do any of this.. I didn't even go as far as you in math.” Head down, walking back to my room I start to think again. “Maybe I shouldn’t even try to finish. Maybe I don't even need to do it at all. The teacher will probably go over it in class.” So I go to bed without finishing the assignment.

Now I’m sitting in that class and the teacher tells us to pull out the assignment and as he comes around to check it off. I start to panic. He gets to me and asks, “What happened? Why didn’t you get it done?” 

Every student has gone through my same experience at least once. This is one of the factors that leads to stress. With added on family problems, sports, big tests, jobs, and personal relationships, the world becomes an unfun, stressful, dark place. In a recent survey by Jonel Aleccia, it was  recorded that “on average, teens reported their stress level as 5.8 (on 10-point scale), compared with 5.1 for adults.” Even without the normal adult stressors like rent, bills and a full time job, teens are more stressed than adults. Later in the same article Norman B. Anderson, the American Psychological Association chief executive and senior vice president said that “in order to break this cycle of stress and unhealthy behaviors as a nation, we need to provide teens with better support and health education, at school and at home, at the community level and in their interactions with healthcare professionals.”

We need to provide teens with better support and health education? How do we do that? Students already have resources they can use at school. However, do they feel comfortable with them? Are they actually what teens need? When I need help I don't really go to anyone and maybe that's my fault. But maybe it's because the resources I need aren't the same as what my high school offers or the resources I need aren't the same as what other students need.

As a high school senior who's been through the struggles others have and then some, I know that not everyone is going to get every assignment done. There will be kids who don't get any done and there will be some who get pretty much all of them done. But then in the middle of that there will be students who try their hardest and still fall short. They will fall behind, become stressed, and maybe stop trying altogether. So if we need to provide students with better support, why haven't we? We need a time and place where we can talk to our peers and get the help we need.

I am in a program called AVID which helps prepare me for college. Every Tuesday and Thursday we have a thing called tutorials which is a study group that we come with prepared questions get together in groups and work through our problems with our peers. These tutorials have helped me in various ways. A study group is sometimes what kids need to help them succeed even when it doesn't seem like they are on task they are still learning more than they might alone. “The students who participated in study groups preparing for the first exam in this class, 85 percent believed being in the group helped their grade” What we need is a place and time we can do this. Before or after school, a time where we can get together with our peers and work through our struggles in school.