Should Students Be Allowed to Miss School for Mental Health Reasons? By Shannon Doyne

Hena Ahmed

Doyne, Shannon. “Should Students Be Allowed to Miss School for Mental Health Reasons?” The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Sept. 2021. 

  Shannon Doyne – Contributing Writer/Editor/Producer in The New York Times, received a B.A. from King’s College and M.A. from Bucknell University, both in English, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame says that new laws in several states have now allowed children and adolescents to have a mental health day. She asks the question, Is this a good trend? Do you wish your school gave you the option? Students will miss a day of school to take care of their mental health. This is important to know about since many people believe that mental health should be a reason to miss a day of school. Students can take that time to work on their mental health, manage their time and focus on themselves. Finally, mental health issues are usual among students, and can affect the academic performance in a student. Students taking a day off school to focus on their mental health can help reduce the chance of a bad mental health and academic performance.

  1. “In the New York City school system, which has more than 1 million students, a day off for mental or behavioral health reasons “would be treated like any other sick day,” Nathaniel Styer, a New York City Department of Education spokesman, said.”
  2. “Faced with high stress levels among adolescents and a mental health crisis that includes worsening suicide rates, some states are now allowing students to declare a mental health day.”

Teaching Teenagers to Cope with Social Stress by Jan Hoffman

Hena Ahmed

Hoffman, Jan. “Teaching Teenagers to Cope with Social Stress.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Sept. 2016

 Jan Hoffman is a features reporter for The New York Times, with a long-time focus on adolescents. She says that new research suggests that students can find ways to deal with their stress and insecurities by learning effective coping skills. David S. Yeager, an assistant professor of psychology at the university of Texas at Austin preforms a study on students where they participated in a reading and writing exercise. This was done to instill a basic message to help them manage tension. The group of students who participated in this exercise had a decrease in stress levels, expressed greater self-assurance in managing stress and developed more confidence. The students were first presented with an article on brain science explaining the chance of personality transformation and then read former highschoolers stories where they discuss their experiences in school. Many former highschoolers who went through a lot of conflicts but overcame them. Finally, the students were asked give advice to younger students about overcoming difficulties and conflicts. This is so important to know about because it shows that coping skills do exist, and it can transform students into feeling more confident and less stressed. 

  1. “If you’re an adolescent and you experience social harm, it’s not fixed that you will always be a target. You can change,” he said. “And over time, others can change, too. They may mellow and not be so cruel. That’s an interesting twist for kids to learn, and a good one.”
  2. “But it does boost kids’ self-confidence by changing their belief in their own ability to change.”

Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19 by Georgia Barbayannis, Mahindra Bandari, Xiang Zheng, Humberto Bacquerizo, Keith w. pecor and Xue Ming

Hena Ahmed

Barbayannis, Georgia, Mahindra Bandari, Xiang Zheng, Humberto Baquerizo, Keith W Pecor, and Xue Ming. “Academic Stress and Mental Well-being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and Covid-19.” Frontiers in Psychology. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 23 May 2022. 

  Each Author works in the Department of neurology in New Jersey, and all discuss how academic stress is present among college students. They think that there is a big correlation between academic stress and mental well-being in college students. Many factors are examined that create academic stress, one being financially but they also look at the impact of the COVID-19 and try to examine the academic stress it caused in which it did cause much more stress and mental health worries. This is very important to know about because realizing the impact of academic stress during pandemic and then addressing it to colleges and universities might just solve the ongoing issue. 

  1. “The coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic is a major stressor that has led to a mental health crisis”
  2. “Second, to identify groups that could experience differential levels of academic stress and mental health. Third, to explore how the perception of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic affected stress levels. We hypothesized that students who experienced more academic stress would have worse psychological well-being and that certain groups of students would be more impacted by academic- and COVID-19-related stress.”

 School-Related Stressors and the Intensity of Perceived Stress Experienced by Adolescents in Poland by Maria Kaczmarek and Sylwia Trambacz-oleszak

Hena Ahmed

Kaczmarek, Maria, and Sylwia Trambacz-Oleszak. “School-related Stressors and the Intensity of Perceived Stress Experienced by Adolescents in Poland.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 10 Nov. 2021.

Maria Kaczmarek is a research scientist and program supervisor at EcoHealth Alliance with expertise in evolutionary biology and virology. Sylwia Trambacz-Oleszak works in Institute of Human Biology and Evolution, Faculty of Biology at Adam Mickiewicz University. They examine the relationship between school-related stressors and the degree of perceived stress that young people in Poland experience. 1846 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 were used as a sample and given questionaries. It is to be that girls are more likely than boys to experience higher amounts of perceived stress.  School environments are a big element in predicting high levels of perceived stress. This information is useful because it can create interventions for each gender and manage the stress they are given.

  1. “Moreover, girls appeared to be more vulnerable than boys to school-related stressors and weight status, while boys to stressors that can arise from interpersonal relationships.”
  2. “Gender was found to be a significant predictor of high perceived stress; therefore, in the next step, gender-stratified adjusted analyses were performed using multiple logistic regression analysis (MLRA)”“Gender was found to be a significant predictor of high perceived stress; therefore, in the next step, gender-stratified adjusted analyses were performed using multiple logistic regression analysis (MLRA)”

The Impact of Stress on Students in Secondary School and Higher Education by Michaela Pascoe

Hena Ahmed

Pascoe, Michaela C. “The Impact of Stress on Students in Secondary School and Higher Education.” The Impact of Stress on Students in Secondary School and Higher Education. 

Michaela Pascoe who is a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of Health and Sport at Victoria University. Her research expertise is in mental health, mindfulness, physical activity, stress, and science communication. She explains the factors that lead to academic stress; however, she also discusses how a student can lead to academic performance. She creates an interesting review of studies that were published between 2008 and 2018. The study showed that earlier stimulus, time management skills are important to know about to have good academic performance. This information is very useful because many universities and educators can use this information to develop techniques that will hopefully improve a students’ academic performance. Finally, this information can also be used to find out if students are at a risk of academic failure and poor mental/physical health. 

  1. “Academic-related stress can reduce academic achievement, decrease motivation, and increase the risk of school dropout”
  2.  “School dropout is associated with a lifelong reduction in earning capacity and secure employment”.

A Plastic Problem: “Taking a Look at Plastic Pollution in Our Oceans.” by Ralph G. Stahl

Trudyann Strachan

The another describe our behavior and influence manufacturers by avoiding purchase of items wrapped in plastic as much as possible. We also
can be more diligent in cleaning and sorting our recyclable plastics in accordance with our local recycling protocols especially.
plastic. In this Points of Reference, the harm caused by plastics in the oceans and what we might do about it.

1. “Microplastics (bottle caps, beads, degraded items) and microplastics (drink bottles, single‐use bags, etc.) find their way into the world’s oceans by various routes, harming people and wildlife and proving costly to collect and remove. Publications in Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) journals show that plastics are difficult to test and cause potential ecological risks in diverse aquatic environments (Rochman et al. 2016; Peng et al. 2017)”

2. “Not all “recycled” plastic gets reused. Once collected by recyclers, plastics are sent to be fuel for generating electricity or
sorted and compressed into large cubes for transport. Often, plastic that is clean and fully recyclable gets combined with plastic.
that is not clean and not fully recyclable, making the entire cube unsuitable for reuse. Each of us can learn more about the proper
procedures for cleaning and sorting our potentially recyclable items and follow them accordingly.”

“Junk Raft: An Ocean Voyage and a Rising Tide of Activism to Fight Plastic Pollution.” by Marcus Eriksen,

Trudyann Strachan

The author explains how a journey from the Gulf War to the Gulf of Mexico, ailed from Los Angeles to Hawaii on the Junk, “a raft made from plastic bottles, with thirty old sailboat masts for a deck and a Cessna 310 airplane as a cabin.” The author sought to attract attention to this growing problem by imitating the path taken by trash routinely dumped into the ocean, where it is “shredded and pulverized” into microplastics. Eaten by unwitting birds and fish who mistake it for nourishment, it enters the food chain with disastrous consequences, which the author describes graphically.

1.“These hazards include the microbeads of plastic found in toothpaste and cosmetic creams and the plastic foam from insulated cups and coolers. To the extent that this problem is recognized, the plastics industry, and many conservative legislators, seeks to lay the blame on consumers who litter, refusing to take any responsibility”.

2.“The book, however, is not simply a polemic. Eriksen succeeds in dramatizing a significant problem and enlisting popular support, noting some immediate steps that can be taken to create recyclable products. the advocacy groups are beginning to register success as consumers become more aware, and he gives the example of the plastic bag ban in Hawaii. Eriksen explains that one of the keys to a successful campaign is to get manufacturers to shoulder some of the blame”.

“Even Tiny Plastic Pieces Can Carry Pollution Throughout the Oceans.” by New York Times

Trudyann Strachan

Fish and birds can nibble or enhance complex in angling gear or different plastic jetsam, but what about tiny pieces of flexible in the ocean they emanate produce used to clean ships or decaying larger pieces of flexible. The atoms maybe transported by currents and eroded by organisms far from the beginnings, or they manage decrease below.

1.“The article focuses on a study on the pollution caused by plastic pieces in oceans. According to the study conducted by researchers including Emma L. Teuton of the University of Plymouth in England, even microscopic pieces of plastic can absorb pollutants. It also states that the study was published in the journal “Environmental Science & Technology.”

2. The particles could be carried by currents and eaten by organisms far from the sources, or they could sink to the bottom. The researchers estimated that even tiny amounts of plastic could significantly increase the concentration of phenanthrene in a common sediment-ingesting worm, the lugworm, and from there accumulate up the food chain.

Plastic (cover story), National Geographic, by Daly Natasha and Royte Elizabeth

Trudyann Strachan

The article offers information on plastic waste in the ocean and waste to mitigate plastic pollution. Hundreds of species of marine animals have been reported to have ingested or become entangled in it, and it’s negatively impacting our ecosystems and resulting in traumatic environmental effects. Through powerful imagery, the exhibition makes the important case for the need to find a balance between using this material and protecting our environment. the planet over plastic and to share how they will make efforts to reduce their use of single-use plastic. 

1.“Plastic wasn’t invented until the late 19th century, and production really only took off around 1950, we have a mere 9.2 billion tons of the stuff to deal with. Of that, more than 6.9 billion tons have become waste. And of that waste, a staggering 6.3 billion tons never made it to a recycling bin—a figure that stunned the scientists who crunched the numbers in 2017.”

2. “Ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine animals every year. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by it. Some are harmed visibly strangled by abandoned fishing nets or discarded six-pack rings. Many more are probably harmed invisibly. Marine species of all sizes, from zooplankton to whales, now eat microplastics, the bits smaller than one-fifth of an inch across”. 

 Plastic Problem: “Taking a Look at Plastic Pollution in Our Oceans.” by Stahl and Ralph GA 

Trudyann Strachan

This Article Talks about frugalities that respond to changes in services practice spending. We need to change our act and influence manufacturers by preventing purchase of items covered in flexible as much as attainable. We also need more hard-working in cleaning and categorizing our recyclable assets in accordance with our local reusing codes and maybe catch more involved accompanying our local reusing organizations.

1.“Not all “recycled” plastic gets reused. Once collected by recyclers, plastics are sent to be fuel for generating electricity or sorted and compressed into large cubes for transport. Often, plastic that is clean and fully recyclable gets combined with plastic that is not clean and not fully recyclable, making the entire cube unsuitable for reuse”.

2.“Many of us live in countries with consumer-driven economies that respond to changes in consumer behavior (spending). We can change our behavior and influence manufacturers by avoiding purchase of items wrapped in plastic as much as possible. We also can be more diligent in cleaning and sorting our recyclable plastics in accordance with our local recycling protocols and maybe get more involved with our local recycling organizations.”