Hillsborough county issued a mandatory assembly on the topic of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention that immediately resulted in a personal unease about the topic among many at Plant High School.
The previous year there were two student deaths, one intentional.
At first, students piled into the auditorium, trying to maneuver their way to sit with friends or a significant other. Talk consisting of various conversations filled the air; eventually the administrative staff calmed down the students.
The presentation began with an explanation of what they called “ACT”, which essentially is a generic acronym that won’t actually be taken into consideration in the scenario of a possible suicide.
After the short introduction, a video on YouTube was shown about a friend of someone who was suicidal that was clearly scripted and couldn’t even be heard. Students realized this, then gave up on the assembly and carried on conversations.
However, this alone did not cause a halt to the presentation that was already viewed as mockery by most.
Next, the school’s psychologist, Jim Landers, shared his perception as to what causes suicidal tendencies. His vision was represented with a metaphor involving a balloon.
The idea was, as more negative or stressful things happen, the balloon gets filled with more air until it eventually pops. While cheesy, the metaphor was for the most part not a complete atrocity.
What caused disrespect with Lander’s presentation was the examples displayed for what fills said balloon. These consisted of, experiencing a breakup, getting a bad grade on a test or getting cut from a team.
While these reasons are understandable, the majority of people don’t have suicidal tendencies from situations along these lines.
At many high schools, a large number of students suffer issues such as abuse and sexual harassment. Having those problems compared to a bad grade is simply insulting.
In another area of the presentation, they projected ways to help improve your mental health so your suicidal tendencies would decrease.
Where this went wrong? The methods suggested include, but were not limited to, eating a complete breakfast, exercise and a full night’s rest of sleep.
While these can help improve mental health, it is still offensive to suggest that eating or exercising is the simple solution to working through abuse or trauma.
The administration team did not stop there. Instead of putting an end to this cruel assembly, they continued by introducing staff members that were there to talk to.
Each gave an intro as to who they are and some included laughter despite the serious topic. One of them even included a motivator to go to the football game in his speech that was uncalled for and irrelevant to the topic.
Not only that, the students turned the staff, who were saying to open up to them, into a popularity contest. Students clapped louder for specific people and chose to do such at unreasonable volumes.
Even after the assembly, students in classrooms were furious, talking about how the presentation seemed less serious than it should have been. A reflection about the assembly was given during last period, which didn’t truly allow the students to reflect about content within the assembly.
The entire assembly was a mistake constructed by the district which probably caused more harm than help for the students attending.