Teaching Tragedy

Today I finally finished reading The Crucible, and in all honesty, it left me incredibly saddened. This got me thinking about the effect of the material kids learn in school on their mental health. Personally, I can recall many books and units that have saddened or disturbed me over the course of my education. It started in middle school when we had an entire unit on the holocaust. Week after week, we had to read books, watch videos, write poems and learn about the horrific murders of millions of people. Just to give you some perspective, at that time I wasn't legally allowed to see a movie rated over PG. 

My brother went through the same unit and I distinctly remember how much it affected him. He came home one day extremely upset and I overheard him talking to our Mom in the other room. The conversation went like this:

"Mom, I don't know what to do, but I can't take it anymore. I don't want to go to school anymore. I can't escape it," my brother said in anguish. 

"Is it really that bad?" my Mom replied. 

"Mom, in art class we literally have to make sculptures of people dying," my brother said. 

It was true though. He really did have to make a sculpture "inspired by the victims of the holocaust." 

My brother's sculpture of man in a death camp kneeling and grabbing his head (he received an A for this project)

Now you may be wondering why my brother didn't go talk to his teachers about this. It's a reasonable question, considering that his teachers might have been able to accommodate him and separate him from the class while they were learning about the holocaust. But you have to be able to see it through the eyes of a kid. In school, all kids want to do is fit in, and telling your teacher that you can't learn this material anymore because it's making you depressed, in a kids eyes, is social suicide. Kids really don't have much of a choice. You simply have to do the work and learn the material. If you don't, your grades will plummet, and if you ask your teacher to not be forced to learn the material then you'll be socially ostracized.  

Having to learn depressing material didn't stop with that unit in middle school. In fact, I can remember learning depressing material at some point in every year since then. For example, my sophomore year of high school I read Catcher In the Rye. I've heard countless peers complain about that book because of how depressing it is. According too TeenHelp.com, between 10 to 15 percent of teenagers have some symptoms of depression at any one time (at my school I think it's actually closer to 20 percent). When depression rates are this high among teens, it seems a little ridiculous to be teaching a book where the main character deals with his depression through substance abuse and at one point tries to kill himself.

At this point reader, you may be thinking, "but there are lessons that we can learn from depressing and even horrifying material." This is true, but if to learn these lessons some students will take a tole mentally, is it really worth it? Couldn't teachers find a more efficient way to cover the crucial points, so students wouldn't be forced to learn weeks of depressing material?

In addition to this, I think the education system in this country sometimes forgets that lessons can  be learned from inspiring, uplifting, and dare I say joyful material as well. If the educational system could be a little more aware of the effect that depressing material can have on students, then I think teachers would spend less time on horrific topics, and more time on topics that students will look forward to learning about. 

If you still doubt the effect that depressing/disturbing material can have on kids, consider this: the media has crucified violent video games for damaging the mental health of this nation's youth. In your opinion, what would disturb a kid more: shooting some aliens in Halo, or reading a true story about the murders of dozens of innocent people committed by their own neighbors.