Hi, I’m new here. Uhm I’ve been really disinterested in life and in my highschool life. I can’t get myself to care about doing any of my assignments or taking any of my tests I’m constantly down in the dumps. I have this speech class that is required as well as performing all speeches in order to earn full credit for the class. My teacher is a hard ass and I don’t know how to get it across to her that I have failed in completing my recent speech. I want her to just let me focus on my next speech and put this one behind me. I have tons of work that I haven’t completed. I want to do it but I feel like I’m sabotaging myself somehow by not even attempting to get any of it done. How should I approach this?
My first advice is to just do it. Set small goals for yourself. Work on the speech 30 min, then have a snack or spend a few minutes online. Turn off your devices if you can while working on it (or at least close the windows and turn off your phone). If you have to skip going out or ECs to get caught up, do it.
If you think you have a medical issue, ask your parents if you can see your doctor. Or talk to your school guidance counselor.
It isn’t being a hardass to expect students to complete assignments.
- Talk to your parents/doctor/guidance counselor about possibly having depression
- Your teacher probably doesn’t want you to get a zero on your speech…also they generally have you learn skills so they want you to learn from the first speech and then start on the next one.
- Get a tutor
- Go to teacher office hours and get help
Meet with the teacher and your guidance counselor to help you set up a plan to either make up, re-do, or drop the assignment. Ignoring it won’t make it disappear, so if you take steps to do something about it, you will feel better about the situation.
I agree that there is nothing wrong with the teacher expecting students to complete work. Meeting with the teacher outside of class will allow you to see that your teacher is a person, just like you. Your teacher doesn’t want to be mean. Your teacher doesn’t know what we know from reading your post. Teachers have a good reason to want their students to do well: they want tenure, secure jobs, good recommendations from administrators and other teachers, pay rises, and so on. Your teacher is probably willing to come to some kind of arrangement with you, but not if you don’t take steps to address the problem. And please consider letting your parents get involved. You don’t have to get through this all on your own.
As @bopper suggested, depression is a possibility. But you also need to rule out general medical problems. How long have you felt like this? All year? A few weeks? Are you getting enough sleep? Good nutrition?
The other posters had good suggestions, but I would deal with this with a two prong approach, medical and academic.