The ‘Stress’ Generation (Part 1)

The ‘Stress’ Generation (Part 1)

 Two full months from the date this article was published, I stumbled upon a TED Talk by Sir Ken Robinson who died in 2020 from cancer. The talk was done in 2006 and is one of the most viewed talks in TED’s history. From that first talk, I continued watching more of him, talking at various conferences across the world. What I didn’t know was that that first video would lead me down a month-long rabbit hole that included reading books, watching videos and analyzing research studies by universities and so so much more. 

This Generation, more specifically, those born between 1990 and 2010 is one of the most stressed generations in history. Suicide and Dropout rates have been at its highest, Academic Inflation has never been more prominent and the way society works has never been so stressed before.

In this four-part series, Farren will take you through time and to different parts of the world. To explore and explain the world of Education and the cracks in it. This article has been in the making for the past two months so it would be very helpful if you could share this article with friends or family members. 

If you think it through though, The ‘Stress’ Generation doesn’t seem that all surprising. For example, I am 13-years old and in Singapore, we have 7 normal curriculum subjects, 3 sides subjects and one practical subject. Students are also required to take up a Co-curricular activity (CCA) which is basically a synonym for an After-School Activity.

But I wanted to first test this theory. Whether this whole ‘Stress’ Generation thing is just a myth and some theory made up by a scientist. 

Chapter 1: The Stopwatch Experiment  

The gist of this experiment is pretty simple. Every day for two weeks, I timed from the moment I entered the school premise to the moment I left it. Then when I got home, I deducted time for recess, lunch and other non-educational purposes in school. Upon going through some news articles and old documents, I concluded that schools in the 1800s were about 4-5 hours long. This duration has been extending every year since then. So I decided to investigate this. 

After 9 days of collecting data, I will present my results for the Stopwatch Experiment. Whether schools have extended in length and whether they have not. I say 9 days because, under the current pandemic situation, we do have one single outlier where I have a day of Home-Based Learning (HBL) but it won’t affect our results that much. Anyways, let’s get to the results.

In total, I spend an average of 7 Hours and 22 Minutes in School each day, 4 of the 9 days are CCA days (additional 3 hours after school). Of the average school day, about an hour and a half on non-educational purposes (Recess, Lunch, Reading Periods). Remember, a normal school day in the 1800s were 4-5 hours long. 

In conclusion, this is not some random theory. This ‘Stress’ Generation theory is very much reality. But this experiment only proves a small bit of the full theory. We have only scratched the very surface of this theory.

Chapter 2: The Productivity Report

In 2018, a UK-based company, Vouchercloud, polled around 2,000 of its staff asking questions related to their work and, more importantly, productivity. It’s staff were asked questions such as ‘Do you think you are productive for the entire day?’ and to ‘Give an estimate duration of how productive you are.’ The average duration of productivity?

2 Hours and 53 Minutes

Yup. That’s right. According to this survey, staff and working adults are only productive for 173 minutes. To put that into perspective, the movie, Titanic is 210 minutes long, A Concorde (old supersonic plane) flight between London and New York is 172 minutes long. With that time, you can Drive between New York’s JFK and Newark Airport in slight under 4 times.

I think you get the idea. Humans are not productive. A normal working job is about 8.5 hours long and yet we are productive for 34% of that time. But that is how we run our Education System. We cramp 40 students into a classroom and expect them to get something out of that. Sure, we do have breaks, 30-minute breaks every 2 or so hours. And just a small note, that 7 hours and 20 minutes are only spent in school, not even at home. Students are given homework on a daily basis and some, have extra tuitions and are being pushed to revise every single day. If we add a pinch of all of this, our school time is not 7+ hours, it’s as long as 9. 

Chapter 3: The Stressful ‘Stress’ Generation 

In the national Education Curriculum in Singapore, there is a period known as Character and Citizenship Education (CCE). As the name suggests, it talks about growing up, your character as a student and so much more stuff. One of the most common subjects under CCE is Stress Management and Stress Levels. I always found it funny that schools teach this under its curriculum because schools are teaching students to cope with stress when they are the one pressurizing students in the first place (I still find it funny). 

But as CCE suggests, the Education System is working to help students cope with stress. And while through conversations and actions and my many experiences in class, I don’t see that these classes make much of an impact. Recently in Singapore, a tragic incident occurred when a 15-year old student murdered a 13-year old in a secondary school wi5 an axe. Upon further investigation, the Police found that the 15-year old had attempted suicide a few years before and had been diagnosed with a mental health condition. This has led the Government to reflect on the Education System and make some adjustments to help to improve this idea of ‘Stress’ and ‘Mental Health’. So far, the Education Minister, Chan Chun Sing has stated an improvement to CCE to focus more on mental health of students.

I think this is a right step in the right direction but I don’t think it is a big enough step, to say it simply. I think the academic side of school is important but also the mental side. Students need the right mindset to learn in and more importantly, students need to feel safe and a sense of security inside schools. But that is not to say we should spend more money towards security, policing and others. Because while security is good at protecting schools, it often neglects what happens inside schools itself. I hope more radical steps will be taken towards this. Some ideas that the Government should take up includes making schools more humane, enhancing school facilities by say, adding more art installations, increasing the use of technology and enhancing cleanliness levels.

Happy Reading! 

The ‘Stress’ Generation (Part 2) - Farren finds out more about the World’s Best Education System, Standardization and Democracy in Schools!

The ‘Stress’ Generation (Part 3) - Farren looks deeper into the many cracks in our Education System. This includes creativity, the digital world and another experiment!

The ‘Stress’ Generation (Part 4) - Farren brainstorms into how we can enhance the lives of students and solve some of the most important problems in our Education System.

The ‘Stress’ Generation (Bonus) - Snippets and Stuff that got cut out from the final draft of the first four parts rounded together and also a small Q&A at the end.

Notes and Other Points

  1.   Sir Ken Robinson (1950-2020) is an Educationalist who talked about Creativity in the Education System and other various points. His website can be found here. 

  2.  Creative Schools is one Ken Robinson’s many books and it also the one I read in preparation for this article and the following ones. You can buy it and find out more here.

  3.  ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’ by Sir Ken Robinson is one of the most viewed TED Talks in history. You can watch the TED Talk here which will also link you to more.

  4.  Academic Subjects include English, Mathematics, Science, Geography, History, Literature and a Second Language (Chinese, for me).

  5.  Non-Academic Subjects is not the technical term for this but it is the most direct way to say it. It includes Arts, Music and Physical Education.

  6.  Practical Subject include Design & Technology and Food & Consumer Education. The two subjects interchange between each other every semester (six months).

  7.  Co-curricular Activities (CCA) is basically an After School Activity that is compulsory for all students. They include CCAs such as Dance, Choir, Athletics, Soccer, Scouts etc.

  8.  The VoucherCloud productivity survey was conducted back in 2018. I plucked out details from this exact article, mainly from the first few paragraphs. You can read it here.

  9.  The Murder of a 13-year old boy in River Valley High, Singapore has caused some shock amongst the public. There are hundreds or articles but here’s one from the BBC