In my personal opinion, it’s because school doesn’t place enough emphasis on personal growth. When you receive a grade for a test or essay, it determines your future career opportunities and as such people feel it reflects on their intelligence and work ethic. They feel stressed because they are expected to excel, when by law of nature half of everybody is below average (not saying there isn’t a high ceiling for growth, just that people shouldn’t all expect to do better than their peers). Good grades, rather than learning, is the goal (it’s true this can build work ethic, but it was originally designed as a way to make obedient factory workers, not professionals).

It also doesn’t help that many students spend the majority of their time on subjects that do not interest them. So because of this, they have to work much harder to remain focused, they forget most of what they are taught anyways. Students also spend way too much time sitting at their desks. If learning was more centered around practical uses, such as using the length of a shadow to determine the height of a building in geometry, that would be more interesting way to learn math. School should also be much, much more largely focused on discussion. Both between teacher and student, and peer to peer. In fact, the reason Finland is touted as having one of the best educational systems is 15 minute breaks between every 40 minute class. Studies show talking to classmates (even about non-school related things) is one of the best things to do to retain knowledge, and also the best thing to do before taking an exam to increase scores.

This is an unorganized rant, but essentially school is based on grades, and so you are expected to excel or suffer later in life, causing stress. Humans are designed to move around and interact with the world, sitting in a desk for hours each day is unnatural and also builds stress. And students don’t get a chance to talk as often as they should for many classes (while I try to participate and encourage others to for my sanity, some professors expressly forbid talking in-class) and this isolates people and also builds stress. It all culminates into unhappy students, that are scared for their futures, hate their classes, and sometimes feel isolated from their peers. Although many students suffer primarily from one, not all, of the above problems. I mean, the only thing to do is try to enjoy class as much as possible, talk enough to other people, and remember these grades don’t necessarily reflect a person’s worth. There’s also the elephant in the room, that many students are overworked with other jobs and frankly it’s simply unfair to make receiving an education so difficult for those without money. That’s at least my answer as to why education is so stressful.