Root Cause Analysis of School Stress

Hi. If you’re new here, I’m Shiv. Back in school, I was a topper. First bencher. Nerdy types. Every certificate, every competition, every activity. 

What that also meant was that I was always stressed. The pressure to outperform in every exam, to maintain my rank, and to meet everyone’s and my own expectations weighed heavily on me. For the longest time, I thought this stress came from something nearby: the next test, the next assignment, or the competition coming up. I thought perhaps the very idea of exams was the root cause of my suffering… But over the years, as I’ve reflected on it, I’ve come to realize that the root cause of my and every student’s stress lies somewhere far, far away. 

What I discovered might surprise you. 

Come on a simple, Socratic path of questioning with me.

1. Why are students stressed? Because of tests and exams. Tests and exams dominated my school life. The sheer volume of work, combined with the stakes attached to every grade, created an environment where failure felt catastrophic.
   

2. But why was I taking all these exams in the first place? Because we need GRADING.  You might know your subject, but how do I know that? How can you PROVE that, at scale? Grades are a way to quantify how well a student is doing academically, and even more importantly, grades allow a simple comparison among students.
   

3. But why do we need comparison and quantification? Because we want to select students for promotion, and eventually, for college. Grades and standardized tests serve as tools for selection. We promote students through the assembly line using these scores. And eventually, we eject them off the assembly line and into college using these scores as well. Colleges and universities needed a way to decide which students to admit, especially when there were far more applicants than available seats. These examination metrics make the selection process manageable (and give them an aura of ‘fairness’).
   

4. But why do we want students to end up in college? Because colleges act as gatekeepers to gainful employment. Colleges have become gatekeepers to successful careers. The bigger the college’s brand name, the bigger the potential employers queuing up at the job fair. For most professional fields, a degree is a non-negotiable requirement. Employers view degrees as a proxy for a candidate’s intelligence, discipline, and potential.
   

5. But why were employers relying so heavily on degrees? Because they need to be efficient when they hire at scale. With thousands of applicants for every role, degrees, GPAs, and institutional prestige became convenient filters. These metrics helped narrow down candidates without requiring time-intensive individual assessments or one-to-one interviews.

We can keep going down this route into the harsher aspects of modern capitalist life, but for all practical education reform purposes, this is a good place to stop. 

It might sound far fetched, but I am proposing that the root cause of the horrible stress caused to school students is in fact outdated and arcane hiring practices. Hiring practices that rely on convenient proxies and lazy filters (with good reason).

I’m sure you experience this insight in your personal life already. When parents scold their kids these days, they lay the stakes out in black and white: if you don’t study, you’ll never find a good job, and you will starve.

The flipside is that if someone can fix hiring practices - i.e., find an efficient and scalable way for companies to match with good candidates, the effect will trickle all the way down to school level and alleviate students’ stress and anxiety. It might also:

• Eliminate the need for exams

• Eliminate the need for colleges, and if we’re really radical…

• Eliminate the need for schools

After all, schools really have become just breeding grounds for workers for the broader economy. Gone are the days of enrichment and personal growth. Even enrichment activities are just for the student’s CV these days. 

But if a young adult can directly enter that economy by skipping this whole school-college rigmarole, why not? Perhaps it will free schools to do something better with their time and resources - like solving knowledge problems for society through consultation, or furthering humanity’s knowledge through research.

Until then, students like me will continue to be caught in a high-pressure system designed to serve the demands of industries far removed from our classrooms.