By Ellerine Diengdoh
Let me begin this article with a DISCLAIMER: Whereas it has come to the author’s attention that modern discourse tends to confuse critique with personal attack, and whereas said author has no particular desire to be summoned before a disciplinary committee for causing “undue emotional distress” (hereinafter referred to as mild discomfort), the following clarification is hereby issued:
Clause 1: This commentary does not apply to young individuals suffering from chronic depression, anxiety disorders, or any other diagnosable mental health condition. Said individuals are hereby absolved of all implied criticism and shall instead be afforded every right, privilege, and support due to them as decent human beings navigating an indifferent world.
Clause 2: The subjects of this critique are instead those otherwise healthy, able-bodied, cognitively sound persons who, upon encountering routine academic tasks, respond as though they have been drafted into active military service without prior notice.
Clause 3: Any objections to the contents herein may be submitted in writing, provided they are:
1) grammatically sound,
2) free of unnecessary melodrama and
3) submitted on time, for once!
In witness whereof, the author affirms the following:
Education is not meant to be comfortable. It is meant to be transformative. And, in rare cases, slightly terrifying.
Signed,
Once upon a time, I thought my biggest challenge as a literature teacher would be getting students to wrestle with difficult ideas….perhaps a discussion over whether Jane Austen was ahead of her time or just a Regency-era gossip columnist, a heated debate on whether Heathcliff deserves therapy or an exorcism, or, the very least, I hoped to teach students how to form a coherent sentence without sounding like a malfunctioning chatbot attempting to summarise Hamlet: “Prince sad. Uncle bad. Ghost spooky. Much stab.”
How naïve I was.
It turns out, the real challenge is making it through a single lesson without someone hyper-ventilating under the sheer weight of existence. I have ( in this case speaking for all my fellow teachers as well) quite against my will, become a part-time therapist, emergency breathing coach, a human tissue-dispenser and a crisis intervention unit, armed with nothing but a syllabus and dwindling patience!
There was a time when, if students were bored, they’d slump in their chairs, sigh real loud, stare intensely at the clock, doodle in their notebooks, or perfect the fine art of the theatrical eye-roll. Now, they tremble at group projects, turn pale at class tests, or suffer horrifying “panic attacks” at the mere mention of an oral presentation. I now fully expect the college to introduce roaming paramedics, ready to administer oxygen every time I say, “Right, who wants to go first?”
And then, of course, there are the emails and Whatsapp messages, explaining how due to, traffic jams, mental exhaustion, existential uncertainty, or mysterious ailments beyond the reach of medical science, they could not complete a 500-word essay. Yet, somehow, they had the strength to draft an excuse, often attached to a doctor’s certificate whose legitimacy God alone can verify.
Once, students were expected to deal with stress. If a test was due, they either did it or took the hit. If they disagreed with a professor, they argued their point, or at least complained bitterly in the canteen to anyone who would care to listen. If they felt uncomfortable in a class discussion, they either spoke up or silently seethed grinding their teeth in rage.
Now? Now, we tread carefully. We soften every blow. We provide trigger warnings. The merest hint of discomfort must be explained and neutralised.
Here’s a revolutionary idea: perhaps life doesn’t come with trigger warnings. Maybe, just maybe, the world will not stop to dim the lights and provide a safe space every time something is difficult. And perhaps, instead of bubble-wrapping students against reality, we should be teaching them how to navigate it.
Consider this bizarre contradiction:
We expect these young people to one day handle jobs, relationships, mortgages and God help us, parenthood! We trust them to vote, drive cars, and sign legal contracts. Yet we act as if they will shatter into a million pieces at the first sign of adversity. This is the generation that will inherit the world. And they are catastrophically unprepared for it. Instead of resilience, we have given them a highly sophisticated sense of personal injury. Instead of grit, we have trained them to identify oppression in literally everything. They now believe:
1. Discomfort is dangerous.
2. Challenge is an attack.
3. Failure is not a lesson, but a personal affront.
Congratulations, society! We have successfully removed their psychological immune system. Now, at the first sign of stress, they break out in full-body emotional meltdown.
What Needs to Change?
Let’s be clear: Colleges are not trauma centres. Teachers are not on-call counsellors.
So here’s a radical proposal:
Let them struggle. Struggle is not abuse. It’s called learning. If we keep swooping in like life coaches every time a student faces a challenge, we are not protecting them….we are crippling them. The world will not pause to hand out participation trophies just because someone tried really hard but felt overwhelmed.
Stop over-validating. Not every fleeting emotion requires a TED Talk and a candlelit vigil. Some emotions need to be managed, not indulged.
Teach endurance. The universe doesn’t care that you’re anxious! If you’re terrified of public speaking, congratulations! That is your brain telling you what you need to work on. Nobody ever overcame the fear of water by standing near a pool talking to their therapist about their feelings.
Reintroduce consequences. If an assignment is late, it’s late. If you fail a test, you learn from it. Some things in life are not negotiable.
If we don’t fix this now, we won’t just have fragile students—we’ll have a generation of overgrown toddlers masquerading as adults, bursting into tears and hyper-ventilating over work emails, that horror of horrors, didn’t come with a smiley. A single piece of constructive criticism will send them spiralling into a week-long hibernation, complete with scented candles, self-affirmations and a support group to help them recover from the ordeal.
As a teacher, I am here to educate, to challenge, to push my students to grow. But I refuse to be a professional hand-holder for a generation that must, at some point, learn what every generation before them knew instinctively: “Life is hard. Cope!”