Required reading is triggering to teens with depression and could cause harmful thoughts. Students should be informed on reasonable alternatives.

“If you are reading about something stressful or someone going through a tough time, you can get triggered even if it’s not something that is happening to you,” Joanna Katsigiannis, a local clinical psychologist, said. “Especially if it’s something you’ve gone through or something similar.”

By assigning reading without considering the audience, teachers risk stirring up topics that can trigger unhealthy and possibly dangerous thoughts.

“I don’t think teachers know the intensity and how much [certain subject matter] could affect some students,” Danielle Vezensky, sophomore, said. “I feel like it would help if [teachers] were told.”

Many teachers do not know about possible triggers. Shannon Eichwald, English teacher, said she never really considered if students would benefit from less triggering books or creating a warning about the intense subjects. It is possible that other English teachers have not either.

“I think that if a required reading book has material that can be considered triggering, students should have the option to read a different book,” Vezensky said. “Especially because different mental [illnesses] and depression is so common in high school.”

About 20 percent of teens will experience some form of depression before they reach adulthood, according to teenhelp.com. That amounts to about 400 students in LZHS who are suffering, and could be having trouble.

“Teenagers are especially prone to depression because of hormones and puberty,” Katsigiannis said. “External and internal triggers can cause depression.”

Teachers should at least give trigger warnings in order for students to try to work around the possible trouble.

“Reading another text could definitely be an option,” Eichwald said. “[The student and I would] just have to work one-on-one. I think we would have to make sure we chose a very comparable book and I would want to make sure that we are working in tangent with their counselor so we could find something that would be helpful to everyone.”

Students should be able to voice concerns, but the current system does not allow an alternative reading material no matter if the current book is triggering.  It is impossible to know someone’s mental health, and accommodating those who need it is important. But people like Vezensky would like to point out that certain triggering topics are not one-size-fits-all scenario’s.  

“People can be as mature as they possibly can,” Vezensky said. “But with things like depression, which doesn’t really go away, there’s no easy way to talk about it. When you’re experiencing depression, it takes many years to heal and even when you do heal, you’re still not completely fine.”

No matter how much a teacher wants to take students into consideration, the curriculum has a few required books that teachers have no choice but to teach in their classes. Even with this regulation in place, teachers want to work with students if they feel triggered by specific content, Eichwald said.

“You never know what a student is going through or has gone through,” Eichwald said. “I think it is important if students feel either uncomfortable or that the the material is too [intense], to talk to their teacher.”