Students are not alone in their well-being

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The pandemic negatively affected everyone’s lives, and university students are no exception. We all adjusted to the drastic circumstances at hand by moving the curriculum to digitized format – everything becoming readily available online from the comfort of our own spaces. I feel after two years of doing this, we have sheltered ourselves and lost the ability to connect with others. 

When we first transitioned to online learning, I struggled adjusting to it. I felt that I couldn’t keep up, I was having a hard time managing all the assignments, and, most of all, I didn’t know how or who to ask for help. It took two semesters before I learned to manage the online format. I became hyper-independent and relied on myself because that’s what seclusion does to you — you become detached from anything and everyone. 

Now that we’re back to in-person classes, I’m having a hard time unlearning the coping behaviours I developed during that time of isolation. Students, including myself, have become complacent in staying in our comfort zones. 

We’ve become apprehensive about stepping out of our bubble, causing a lot of anxiety and distress when forced to do so in classroom settings. One example of which would be being asked to talk in front of the class. Simply participating in class discussions has become even more of an anxiety-inducing task for students. Instructors have definitely noticed this phenomenon as well. 

In a podcast I did with  Dr. Ross Laird, one of my instructors this semester, discussing topics regarding students’ mental health and well-being, he said he has noticed this shift in students’ behaviour in his classes. 

“Coming back into the classroom after two years of remote learning, a lot of learners are just really almost paralyzed around social connection … talking to other people [has become] an overwhelmingly anxiety-provoking thing,” he said.  

I think his statement captures the sentiment a lot of students in this setting can definitely relate to. 

With this in mind, I believe instructors should be more humanistic in their approach to teaching rather than forcing students to participate in class discussions just to facilitate more engagement in class.

Using more creative and less anxiety-inducing methods could be used as alternatives, such as doing small group activities integrated in the lesson plan, applying course learning objectives through field outings, or inviting guest speakers to class. 

These are just some effective examples I have experienced from my own classes this semester and I can attest that these methods can ensure more student engagement in class without putting too much pressure on them. 

I am aware there are limitations to this suggestion and some curriculums would be hard to restructure, such as students being asked to read the textbooks and to follow the lecture slides, and instructors strictly adhering to lesson plans. But I believe it is not impossible.

Instructors have to be creative with their approaches and perhaps, even better, collaborate with their students more on their learning strengths and weaknesses. I know this puts a lot of responsibility towards the educators, but if the goal is to effectively teach us the course materials, why not make it so that preserving the students’ mental health and well-being are also accounted for in the lesson plan?  

This is not to say that instructors are the only ones that should act as agents to preserving students’ mental health and well-being. The responsibility should be evenly distributed between student, educator, and even the institution. 

As Ross said in our conversation, “mental health is [the] responsibility of everyone in the community, everyone in this education community we’re in.”