by Ella Casey ‘21

The struggles of COVID-19 are known to virtually everyone, and keeping up strong mental health is a struggle. In light of this, Sherwood, at the direction of MCPS, decided it would be good to hold advisory periods each Tuesday, mainly to focus on mental health topics, which seemed like it would be quite beneficial at first. It was, to say the least, disappointing. Admittedly, there are some helpful points brought up, but they are usually buried under several slides of repetitive, obvious, and plain boring information dumps.

The information is also given in such a way that it almost feels like we are being talked down to. Obviously, this is not their intention, but the format of the presentation is put into such simplistic, undetailed facts, terms, and concepts that it seems fit for a child–not people who would be legal adults within a few years. For example, in the Coronavirus session, they dedicated a whole slide to the definition of “crisis,” something most teenagers probably already fully understand. Not to mention a lot of the information are things students have already been told numerous times in school. Take Session 5 about making SMART goals, which outlines criteria for good goal-making. I am almost positive we have gone through these exact steps in (a) previous year(s) and created examples of our own. Overall, the Tuesday Advisory periods had a lot of potential, and even necessity, but sorely missed the mark.