Teacher Bruce Ekstein offers stress relief help to students

By Allegra Papera
Staff Writer

Students may avoid stress by distracting themselves with TV shows and movies, but Mira Costa science teacher, Mr. Ekstein offers different solutions to eliminate anxiety on campus.

Over the past month, Ekstein took note of his students’ high stress and anxiety levels and takes the school’s first step to reduce this issues on campus. Students’ scores helped Mr. Ekstein realize there was a deeper problem beneath the surface of his students’ inability to apply the information learned in class to the tests.

“I found that a number of my students were not performing well on exams, and when I asked them what was going wrong, they told me that they were experiencing tremendous amounts of stress and anxiety” Mr. Ekstein said.

The students’ apparent understanding of lessons, but their inability to succeed on tests proposed Mr. Ekstein to consider what factors might play into their struggles with anxiety.

“[Students] face pressure from themselves, and there are so many [extracurriculars] that the students are involved with now, that it’s inevitable that the stress level goes up,” Mr. Ekstein said.  “They don’t have a sufficient amount of time to study or to sleep.”

Initially, Mr. Ekstein noticed about 15 to 20 of his students whose grades were struggling from anxiety. To help these students, he began offering lunchtime meetings providing information on how to reduce test taking anxiety. In actuality, roughly 45 students attended the first of six meetings.

“With the pressures [students] face today, I’m not surprised [about their anxiety levels],” Mr. Ekstein said. “Parents and schools pressure them, and they pressure themselves”.

Mr. Ekstein offers words of advice in his lunchtime meetings and outlines them in the documents that are available in his classroom during the meetings. His presentation of this information helps to reinforce simple ideas like getting a good night’s sleep, eating a healthy breakfast, and making sure not to cram or over stress for tests.

“The packet is easy to read so by reading it a few times, I was able to remember most of the techniques he mentioned,” one of Mr. Ekstein’s students, Coco Barnes said. “Just being reminded by our teacher to get a good night’s sleep will help [us]”.

While his advice is inspired by the way students should deal with his classroom, Mr. Ekstein’s ideas are not limited to use for success in his class. His ideas are created as a guide to eliminate anxiety in any class, or for more personal worries.

“These tools can absolutely be applied to other classes” Ekstein said. “If [students] can apply the basics that they’re doing now to improve their exam grades, they can apply it to their own lives”.

Six weeks after introducing his ideas, Mr. Ekstein’s students have increased their test averages about seven or more points higher than before. Additionally, with his meetings beginning with a large group of 45 students, their sizes have decreased to what is now about 15 students per meeting.

“I think I’ve given students tools that they’re now applying,” Mr. Ekstein said. “Not only are they improving but it’s also reducing their anxiety level, which is huge. I’ve seen a tremendous turnaround; students are more alert and they’re sharp when they are in class.”