“How to Study” on Stress at School
Can stress be good for kids?
The upcoming new edition of How to Study recognizes good stress in today’s learning environment. Good stress includes getting oneself pumped up for an important game – or for a crucial test, for example.
But it’s the bad stress that has destructive effects on students’ academic progress. Some stress may originate at home and carried into school. Some comes from peer pressures at school.
Both of these are harmful to learning and wellbeing but are psychological by nature and thus beyond our purview. The new How to Study recommends that these concerns be dealt with by a sympathetic mentor or professional counselor.
What the new How to Study does address specifically is self-induced stress, particularly the current varieties.
Self-induced stress often stems from students without a thoughtful plan of confronting their work effectively and of willingly squandering their time, thus neglecting their academic duties. The text of the revised How to Study is designed to provide students with steps to develop successful tactics of working productively. The theme throughout is: “You are unique. Find what works for you, and use it to master your academic life.”
Today, it is the screen that beguiles our students, often leading them to stressful dead ends as they procrastinate, thus disregarding their work. TV, hand-held tech devices, and computers present an attractive distraction for many students, enticing them to use their time frivolously rather than on schoolwork. But – and here’s the big “but” – the screen is now in universal use in classrooms everywhere, and computers have become a must as a tool for studying.
The revamped How to Study suggests methods to reduce stress in general as well as ways to use computers fruitfully for academic work. No book in the world can dissuade students from wasting their time. But the revised How to Study can surely help students achieve success in school by offering ways to succeed, replacing stressful periods of barren performance.
Confident and productive learners are just about immune from self-induced stress.
David Griswold
Author, How to Study
Tags: How to Study