For years, people have struggled with things, and they seek help for them. People who need someone to listen seek a therapist, people who need someone to fix something seek a handyman or a mechanic. Along with these, people also seek cures that can be given by doctors.

Doctors are people who work to help fix you and make you all better. If you have a broken arm, they will give you pain medicine and correct the bone to grow. If you have a stuffy nose they can prescribe medicine for that too. These medications often help and can make the symptoms go away, or at least dull. You might think that the doctor is great for that, but do you know who the real hero is? 

It’s you. The doctor might put the bone in the right place, but how would it heal if your body didn’t grow back. The medicine for a nasal infection can help thin the mucus, but it’s up to your body to fight off the intruder. Doctors can help weaken the symptoms, but it’s your duty to fight the source to ensure that you overcome it.

Our school has established playdays and wellness centers to help struggling students. Mental health problems are real issues that should be treated as such. By having a wellness space where students can escape every once in a while, the school has helped to address these issues, but they don’t fight them straight on. Just as a doctor helps treat the symptoms, the school hasn’t addressed the source of the problems. 

Students can often find themselves drowning in a sea of assignments and due dates, as well as fighting to meet the harsh expectations of others. Trying to be all that someone else wants them to be can be a very difficult task. Long hours need to be put in, and there might not be a lot of room left for themselves. By giving students an “asylum” to get away too, the school can recognize that there are real problems. But without addressing the cause of those problems no growth or freedom can be established.

The teachers that give out a small amount of homework tend to be a students favorite, and that same student might even do better in their class because of this. There are people all around campus who are failing subjects because it is all too much for them, but are excelling in a class that keeps it simple and makes things easy to understand and complete. Pilling papers and essays align with projects and research isn’t a very effective way to help students. Targeting these reasons as some of the sources for struggling students can help our school community thrive and grow in a way never before seen. Mankind has been taught to seek cures and remedies to fix problems, but the reality is that we need a solution not a cure.