School Public Health

Stress is part of school. Why isn't it part of the curriculum?

Students are taught how to prepare for exams, but rarely how to notice what stress is doing to their bodies, or what to do when it becomes too much. Teachers see the signs first, but they are not always given a shared language for responding.

I wanted to build something that lived inside the school's existing routines: a guide teachers could actually use, and a workshop that did not feel like one more item on their list.

A guide, a workshop, and a smaller ask.

With the school clinic and psychological wellness center, I created a wellness guide for 60+ classrooms and led teacher workshops on stress management and mindfulness. The guide focused on small, repeatable practices—breathing, noticing, and resetting—that could fit into a class period.

• For teachers: a short workshop on recognizing stress, opening a conversation, and using a calming practice without turning it into a lecture.
• For classrooms: a printed guide with routines students could use independently.
• For the school: a shared vocabulary that connected the clinic, teachers, and students.

The goal was not to add one more thing to a teacher's day. It was to make the existing day a little more manageable.

A guide only works if the room can use it.

The teachers were the real designers. They knew which five minutes of the day were actually available, which language would land, and which advice would feel like an instruction from outside the room. I was the translator between the clinic's expertise and the classroom's reality.

That lesson has stayed with me: in health communication, the audience is not a blank page. They are people with a schedule, a history, and a reason to be skeptical.