Last Monday LMHS and other High Schools added modules that are intended to help anxious and depressed students. It’s no doubt that they are doing this with the best intentions, but many LMHS students and some teachers are not very happy about this.

Its 2020 and we all know that Mental Health is something we should not joke about, but are nearpods the best solution?– short answer, it depends. Some students take them as a joke, others don’t really care about them, and others find them very helpful.

I decided to interview one of my friends that was diagnosed with depression about the topic, and he said, “When the doctor told me that I had depression my heart fell, I felt really embarrassed, I felt like I was the weird guy who was not able to do any positive thing. But I eventually realized that it wasn’t my fault, and that it is not as bad as most teens say it is.”

He said that no one should take the mental health modules as a joke, and that even though most of students don’t really care, those modules would have really helped him when he didn’t know he had depression, and are probably helping others who don’t know it yet.

Throughout my day I noticed that most of my teachers didn’t want to do them, so I decided to ask one of them why… and her response was unexpected. She mentioned how she thinks that these modules are not helping students since a significant amount of students are not taking the effort to understand them. She also said how she thinks that is a waste of time for both students and teachers, and that most of them are not enjoying it. She also thinks that the best approach could be to have direct therapy, however she understands that to do so would be expensive and difficult.

In the end, no, they are not really helping most of the students. However, we don’t have everybody’s opinion, and there might me a couple of students that are finding this information very valuable. I think that the modules should be more optional, that way students who are confused could reach out for help.