Back in the 1980's in the U.S., I found junior high (grades 7-8) pretty unpleasant, but I really enjoyed high school (grades 9-12).
Please share something, as it's not clear at all for those non-US citizens.
Every school district is different. At the federal level, there aren't that many rules that apply across the entire US. Each state has their own rules on top of those. You've no doubt seen on the news that places like Florida and Texas are exerting a lot more control over the schools in within their states. Others are far more laissez-faire and leave many decisions to the local population.
I'm in the Chicago metro, in Illinois. By default, the school systems are based on the townships created by the original land surveys done after the American revolution. The school systems are independent governments that levy taxes and do not answer to the towns and cities whose boundaries overlap them. If a city grows large enough, it is allowed (but not required) to take over the school system and make it part of the city government, meaning that the city government now dictates many aspects of how the schools are run. Chicago (and many of its larger suburbs) have done this. My own school district is a variation on that; it is a consolidation of multiple parts of multiple townships, but still mostly independent of the city.
We, the voters, exert control over how the district runs. And ours is very sympathetic to anxiety issues in children. It is an excused absence to keep your child home for a "mental health day" if they need it. Kids can go to school half-time if that is better. Want to home-school your kid and just send them to science or math class? Perfectly fine. Band, orchestra, sports teams? Sure, no problem. Break up with your boyfriend or are on the outs with your group of friends and it's just too embarrassing to eat lunch all alone? We have special rooms for when that happens.
But our district is very well-funded and has outstanding academics. We've got a lot of freedom to try almost anything.
This doesn't mean that every kid had these problems, and the article says as much, but for those who were already having a hard time I can see their conditions being further exacerbated by the constant noise now.
So it’s not going to be any one thing but rather a consequence of our culture of devaluing intelligence and learning coupled with how severely under-resourced our schools are.
In my opinion, it's just the "human condition". Like adults, kids want to take the least path of resistance. Since learning is difficult for some/most of us, avoiding school is the easiest path since it requires real effort. This is why parental guidance is so important for young people. Sure, some cities experience violence, some schools have odd teaching mandates, etc, but all-in-all, it's the daily grind that kids want to avoid (just like adults!). Not to mention the pressure from social media.
I really think we have different ideas of school based upon our own experiences in it.
I had to wake up at 6am and get driven on a noisy school bus for >1hr into the countryside to go to my Catholic public school here in Canada for years. It’s normal for kids to dread that sort of commitment. Looking back though I realized my school life was much nicer and had better teachers than the awful stuff I’ve heard from my nieces/nephews today, so maybe it was worth driving for an hour instead of staying local. Not all school life is equal.
You can read more about the dark side of the system here: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Problem_of_Schooling especially the 100 bad habits learned at school
To be crystal clear: it implies an active school shooting is underway.
- compulsory
- segregated by age
- passive lecturing
- strict rules and deference to authority
- standardized, inflexible curriculum
[1] https://www.naturalchild.org/articles/guest/john_gatto.html
Education is one of the easiest things for politicians to "save money" by cutting budgets and the consequences usually take 15-20 years to appear, at which time the responsible politicians are long gone and can't be held accountable.
[1] https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bildung/investitionsruecksta...
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...
Whatever complaints we may have about the U.S. education system, they cannot be explained by a lack of funding.
Well at least they aren't shooting each other I guess
I played football. I wasn't getting invited to big parties, but nobody bugged me. Even guys who were never good enough to be first string as seniors - they were part of the team. But that might just have been my school. It was pretty good about letting the drama kids be drama kids, the nerds be nerds, etc. People generally found their niche. Maybe it wasn't the one they wished they could have, but it was a place where you were accepted, and they mostly left each other alone.
If you had purely intellectual interests, or physical issues in general you quite likely would not have had the same experience.
It's not about niche finding so much as it's about social blending and masking.
The most "pure intellectual" people in my class ended up editing the school paper and being in student government. They might have been made fun of, especially behind their backs, but nobody ever really tore them up.
Like I said, it was a place where you could find your niche and live in it. Not perfect, and if you wanted to have a conflict, you could. But mostly, that didn't happen.