Are fragility and anxiety closing the door on college students' resilience?

As a college educator of 10 years, I tremble with anxiety at the idea of what our future workforce will look like.

While we ponder (and panic) over the advancement of AI’s impact on education and workers, I can’t help but think: Good. Let Al take over. Because these students — our future workers — can’t.

They can’t talk to each other. They can’t meet deadlines. They can’t fulfill a lot of essential responsibilities because they are plagued by anxiety.

But could this easily dropped “diagnosis” and the advocacy for accommodations on campuses be making things worse?

I don’t see how they are making anything better.

Ten years ago, the top phobias were things like fears of death, public speaking, heights and spiders. Today, research indicates that social phobia — the fear of interaction with others — has risen to the top of that list.

Now, I’m not questioning whether anxiety as a disorder is real or valid. But every being since the beginning of time has faced anxiety. According to a 2019 Pew survey, 70% of teens see anxiety and depression as a major problem among their peers.

There’s nothing new about having anxiety. But our newer ways of helping students cope with anxiety through advocacy, which asks us to forgo deadlines and reconsider presentation requirements, is something we should be reconsidering and talking about.

Why are we really doing this? Is this actually helping students succeed?

Every time I get an accommodation letter from our disabilities office, which asks me to consider, “Are your deadlines necessary?” I want to ask whether they plan to follow students through their lives as advocates. Will you ask their landlords to reconsider collecting rent because it gives their tenant too much anxiety? (Though who, in that scenario, will accommodate the landlord’s anxiety?)

A year ago, in my journalism course, a student wrote a very angry, two-page email to me about my insensitivity to the “very real” anxiety students are dealing with.

My course assignments include reporting and having to interview students — that was the problem for her.

That we talked about social anxiety in class had led her to believe I wouldn’t impose social interaction on them. This was the problem for me. Why is it her expectation that she will not need to meet any of the course’s professional expectations?

Somewhere along the line, the conversations surrounding mental health awareness and self-advocacy began to change course to get students the help they needed. And school could be that resource. I stand by that.

But somewhere along those same lines, we stopped talking about resilience. Instead of teaching students how to handle anxiety, we are shifting the burden to educators to alleviate that anxiety for students.

Am I supposed to teach students simply how to stay afloat in calmer waters rather than learn to swim against the current? Even providing constructive criticism on students’ work can lead to an anxiety attack.

Are we responsible for creating such fragile students?

Mental health experts agree that treatments for anxiety include immersion therapy: Confront the anxiety by doing. Avoidance of anxiety triggers can backfire and make anxiety worse.

The last four years in education have been tough for students and teachers. The decline in mental health likely will have long-term effects. Good teachers have to recognize that anxiety in students is endemic and needs to be addressed with compassionate, open dialogue.

I am a fan of creating detailed plans with my students to ensure they meet — not avoid — course objectives.

College is an investment and the classroom an opportunity to learn hard and soft professional skills.

If we don’t hold our students to these standards, it’s a bad investment for our future. Let’s face it, the “real job world” will let you drown because AI won’t have anxiety.

Provided

Maham Khan, a journalism teacher at Harper College in Palatine, is one of the Sun-Times’ Chicago’s Next Voices columnists.