Antar Sarkar :
From the very beginning of student life, studying appears to be a stressful task for students. Guardians and social exertion push students into a cycle of stress from the initiation of student life. As a result, students even forget the meaning of learning, they just read to pass the steps and the education system appears to them an outer-directed world where there is no existence of their own wills. Almost every student feels the relentless rush in student life, they react against the system and that is the hallmark of stress in student life. The stress is a result of the powerful pull that exerts itself over students from the various systems in their lives: pressure from family to get in rank, negative comparison, pressure from surrounding to be recognized as a good student and so on. Instead of eagerness for studying from own, reading becomes an outer-directed task to which students feel imposed on them. When a timeframe is provided to school going students to read and do tasks daily, they give short focus on real study for acquiring knowledge and that causes gaps in the basics in their study making them unsteady for actual knowledge gaining in upcoming life. They feel like they never have time to stop and breathe, they feel always rushed from one thing to the next, they feel compelled to complete the next task or meet the next goal, but they stay unsure of the purpose and meaning of reading. Every class up students start to feel the study topics new and more complex because the previous outer-directed study is not actually acquired. Students read as they have to sit in exams, but interestingly, most of them even don’t know why the topics they are reading. Gradually students get into the stress cycle, which causes suffering in their later student life. Within this stress cycle, students grow up and step into college and universities where the main problem begins. Some students with good results at the secondary level drastically fall at the college and university level as then the study doesn’t remain within the boundary and they start to feel more stressed with the change. According to a research at the College of Education (CoE) students in Eritrea – ‘The transition of students from high school level to the college level is inherently stressful for students. It could cause psychological, academic and social shock to them’. If they study in their own direction from the beginning of their student life, they will feel that studying is more enjoyable than pressure.
The opposite of the Stress Cycle is the “Balance Cycle”. In the balance cycle, students stop reacting to study events and start purposefully planning and achieving the things from their study they need. They set personal interest in the study that protects them from sliding back into the stress cycle. To get into the balance cycle it is doesn’t necessarily need a drastic change in the education system. Shifting in the thinking about studying as a responsibility can help the students to make balance in student life. In the balance cycle students come through the other side of creating study as a personal vision, they find purpose and interest in studying. Reading seems to them as a life option than imposed tasks. In the balance cycle, students feel more creative, less threatened. Students possess strong ideas about what they are reading, why they are reading and that motivate students to read with happiness and satisfaction. In the balance cycle, students are less reactive against the pull of the education system because they are empowered by internal navigation. Guardians, teachers and society will be the real contributor to move the students into a balanced cycle if they succeed to transform the study of outer-directed pressure to inner-directed interest from the beginning of student life. They should allow students to nurture their own interest for studying than imposing a heavy weight bag to rank in schools from the starting point of student life.
(Antar Sarkar, Student, Chattogram Veterinary & Animal Sciences University).
From the very beginning of student life, studying appears to be a stressful task for students. Guardians and social exertion push students into a cycle of stress from the initiation of student life. As a result, students even forget the meaning of learning, they just read to pass the steps and the education system appears to them an outer-directed world where there is no existence of their own wills. Almost every student feels the relentless rush in student life, they react against the system and that is the hallmark of stress in student life. The stress is a result of the powerful pull that exerts itself over students from the various systems in their lives: pressure from family to get in rank, negative comparison, pressure from surrounding to be recognized as a good student and so on. Instead of eagerness for studying from own, reading becomes an outer-directed task to which students feel imposed on them. When a timeframe is provided to school going students to read and do tasks daily, they give short focus on real study for acquiring knowledge and that causes gaps in the basics in their study making them unsteady for actual knowledge gaining in upcoming life. They feel like they never have time to stop and breathe, they feel always rushed from one thing to the next, they feel compelled to complete the next task or meet the next goal, but they stay unsure of the purpose and meaning of reading. Every class up students start to feel the study topics new and more complex because the previous outer-directed study is not actually acquired. Students read as they have to sit in exams, but interestingly, most of them even don’t know why the topics they are reading. Gradually students get into the stress cycle, which causes suffering in their later student life. Within this stress cycle, students grow up and step into college and universities where the main problem begins. Some students with good results at the secondary level drastically fall at the college and university level as then the study doesn’t remain within the boundary and they start to feel more stressed with the change. According to a research at the College of Education (CoE) students in Eritrea – ‘The transition of students from high school level to the college level is inherently stressful for students. It could cause psychological, academic and social shock to them’. If they study in their own direction from the beginning of their student life, they will feel that studying is more enjoyable than pressure.
The opposite of the Stress Cycle is the “Balance Cycle”. In the balance cycle, students stop reacting to study events and start purposefully planning and achieving the things from their study they need. They set personal interest in the study that protects them from sliding back into the stress cycle. To get into the balance cycle it is doesn’t necessarily need a drastic change in the education system. Shifting in the thinking about studying as a responsibility can help the students to make balance in student life. In the balance cycle students come through the other side of creating study as a personal vision, they find purpose and interest in studying. Reading seems to them as a life option than imposed tasks. In the balance cycle, students feel more creative, less threatened. Students possess strong ideas about what they are reading, why they are reading and that motivate students to read with happiness and satisfaction. In the balance cycle, students are less reactive against the pull of the education system because they are empowered by internal navigation. Guardians, teachers and society will be the real contributor to move the students into a balanced cycle if they succeed to transform the study of outer-directed pressure to inner-directed interest from the beginning of student life. They should allow students to nurture their own interest for studying than imposing a heavy weight bag to rank in schools from the starting point of student life.
(Antar Sarkar, Student, Chattogram Veterinary & Animal Sciences University).
