History Lesson: The State of Mental Health in Our Schools — How Did We Get Here?

Two trends in American student life, one rooted in the past and one very modern, are not just threatening the mental health of our children but stripping them of the power to think critically in an era of unprecedented challenge.

The 19th-century education reformer John Dewey could never have foreseen how young people today would be so profoundly influenced by technology. But his views are still being applied to progressive education today — and at a time of concern that social media is already eroding students' self-worth. Rather than an obscure figure from the past, Dewey is still relevant today. It's time for a history lesson.

Dewey's Copernican Shift: Social-Emotional Learning

Often referred to as the father of modern education, Dewey was a staunch advocate for what we now call "hands-on" learning. Dewey believed that learning happens through engagement and that teachers are not instructors but designers of learning experiences.

As a pioneer in functional psychology, Dewey based his education philosophy on experimental psychology and sought to expose what he believed were the flaws in the education of students. Dewey rejected the Western philosophical idea that anything that is real or knowable is changeless. This included the Christian concept of God. He believed that there was no static being and that experience could not be purely subjective.

Dewey likened his revolution in pedagogy (the way a teacher teaches) to a Copernican shift. Just as Copernicus was the first to propose that the Earth revolved around the Sun in the 16th century, Dewey claimed education would no longer orbit around the teacher and textbooks. Instead, the new astronomical center would be the child. In practice, this meant displacing the authority of the teacher in favor of the child's developing interests and impulses — and creating a student-centered curriculum that eschewed the labor-intensive work necessary to create critical thinkers. It is an approach that has found fertile ground in today's educational landscape.

Individual Resilience, Not Social Reform

While Dewey is credited with being a progressive thinker, his overall goal was to benefit the government and our democratic society, not individual children. Dewey was a student of German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt's school of thought in which students were taught to contribute to a group instead of developing their individual skills.

Dewey's experiential learning can be regarded as an early version of what is now called "social-emotional learning," which describes the development of interpersonal and self-regulation skills. At CCHR, we recognize the benefit of hands-on learning but with a difference: Unlike Dewey, we want students to be able to build positive relationships and make responsible decisions for themselves — not to be used as agents of social reform.

To that end, we believe schools should cease imposing what Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis described as the "traditional, stigma-laden mental health education model"that overrides parental authority and takes mental health out of their hands. Rather, schools should become more involved in other aspects of education that teach students the skills they will need as adults.

Many states have made K-12 mental health curriculums mandatory with 96% of schools offering at least one type of mental health service to students. However, Florida bucked the trend in 2022 when it began shifting the focus from mental health education to a new model based on fostering students' resilience. This has never been more pressing given the unique challenges technology is posing to our children's mental health.

Technology's Effect on Mental Health

With technology being heavily implemented in schools and social media a ubiquitous part of children's lives, our students are constantly being bombarded with information. Not only can constant screen time negatively affect the mental and emotional development of children and teenagers, but it often causes students to compare their lives and appearances to the curated portrayals they see online, opening them up to be victims of cyberbullying.

One of the most detrimental effects of technology is the ease with which information can be manipulated and spread online. This is especially true when it comes to the push for diagnoses and medication. Students are constantly being told online that their normal reactions to life are mental illnesses that can be "treated" with drugs. These platforms often downplay or completely ignore alternative approaches to a child's mental health.

The U.S. and New Zealand are the only countries that allow direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisements and the use of psychiatric drugs in children has been growing for many years. In this context, the internet can be a valuable tool for education, but without proper regulation, it can be a breeding ground for biased narratives that can hurt our children.

Modern Challenges Require Old-School Solutions

Children were not meant to live sedentary lifestyles, and time spent behind desks and screens can only continue to damage their mental health. The answer is to reallocate funding meant for mental health resources in schools to activities that can promote the positive aspects of individual learning, such as recess, physical education, art, and music.

Recess may seem like a standard requirement for schools, but only since 2017 has Florida legally required that schools provide students with unstructured playtime. Even now, recess is only mandatory for students in kindergarten through to fifth grade, and it is only for 20 minutes out of a six-hour school day. At least one study has shown that if our students put down their devices and participate more in physical activity, their mental health can significantly improve. In addition to removing mental health education from the school curriculum, more curricula that promote art and music, and especially physical education, must be implemented.

These recommendations represent a shift away from progressive experiential learning and toward creating well-rounded adults of the future. Students are not the means to fulfill political and social agendas — and should not be anesthetized through standardized learning, prolonged screen time, and drugs. As a nation, we must focus on fostering their creativity, critical thinking, and intelligence to better equip them to handle the uncertainties of our time.