Once a month, Lake Park students pause their schedules for the Lancer period. Some dread it, some see it as a nice break from the stress of regular classes, but at its core, the Lancer period’s aim is to provide students with valuable information that contributes to important conversations. This February’s session focused on suicide awareness and mental health, topics that school administration increasingly stress as important topics for students to comprehend. They aren’t wrong at all to do so. In a study done by the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly 1 out of every 5 adolescents were found to report symptoms of depression.
Lake Park administration isn’t the only one advocating for awareness around student mental health, as this Lancer Period was a part of a nationwide curriculum designed to help students recognize signs of depression in both themselves and in their peers.
Lake Park Perspective had the opportunity to sit down for an interview with the school’s Class of ‘27 social worker Mr. Joel Zedrow, who explained the purpose and objective of the curriculum and clarified key parts.
He explained that the goal is both educational and preventative.
“It focuses on identifying symptoms of depression in adolescents,” Mr. Zedrow said.
“We’re hoping students become aware of how depression might affect them and understand the difference between just feeling tired and realizing something deeper might be going on with their mood, behavior, or energy.”
A major goal of the discussion made during the Lancer Period and this nationwide curriculum was to challenge misconceptions surrounding suicide and mental health. One common myth, or rather, fear, is that speaking openly about suicide can increase the likelihood of someone attempting it. Mr. Zedrow emphasized that that research actually shows the opposite,
“I think it’s important for schools to openly talk about suicide and mental health. It’s a myth that if you talk about suicide, then someone’s going to be more likely to do it,” Mr. Zedrow said.
“That’s been debunked and I think that, especially for your generation who makes mental health a common topic of conversation, it’s important to talk about.”
His point is that these kinds of discussions might be uncomfortable for some, and that’s a normal thing because suicide is an uncomfortable topic, but it’s important to have them.
At the end of the lesson, students were asked to complete a survey that asked questions about students’ emotional state. As a result of their information provided by students on the survey provided to them by school staff, some students were called down to the office to have a conversation with school social workers despite arguing that they notice no signs of suicide or depression in themselves. Lots of these students viewed the meeting as an inconvenience in their day rather than something that was meant to help them.
However, Mr. Zedrow sought to clarify that.
“It isn’t just about someone saying they’ve had thoughts of suicide; sometimes it’s students who answered yes to several other indicators, like losing interest in things or feeling like everyone else is better than them” Mr. Zedrow said. “It’s the start of a conversation about mental health that maybe a student hasn’t had before.”
Additionally, it’s important to note that the result of students being called down to the office was based on a cumulative score they received based on their answers to the questions, not just answering ‘yes’ to a single one.
So, while these meetings take up time out of some students’ schedules, if even one of those students genuinely is experiencing mental health struggles, it’s certainly worth the hassle of having multiple student meetings in order to let that one student know that they have an outlet.
To attribute Lake Park’s Suicide awareness initiatives and Lancer period to a single vision, it would be that eventually, society will come to place just as much of a focus on mental health as it does physical health. Actively working towards that goal is something that can only serve everybody, especially in developing a generation that struggles so frequently in mental health. People really shouldn’t be afraid of these conversations; instead, we should embrace them.
As Mr. Zedrow chose to put it towards the end of the interview: “It’s okay to talk about it.”
