All Students Should Complete a Basic Military Training Course in Order to Develop Resiliency

I want you to imagine something for a moment. You have a huge project or exam tomorrow and you are not ready. It’s 3:30am already and you still are not done. Picture how stressed you are, how hard it is for you to stay awake, how much caffeine you’ve had already? Now it's 4:00am now and you just finished. Visualize how tired you are, are you able to fall asleep right away or is the caffeine keeping you up, how difficult it is going to be to get up in the morning. Picture your eyes drifting shut in class, how much coffee will you have had. Now think about how much easier that entire day would have been if you already been professionally trained, and conditioned to cope with lack of sleep, to go long periods of time with no sleep and still not need caffeine, to deal with large amounts of stress and still function normally. That is only one situation where having a basic military training course would prove extremely useful in a real life situation. Washington University stated in a law review on the effect of military training on education in 1927 that “no man can prepare himself to serve his country in war without making himself more valuable in civil life.” It is for this reason that it would be invaluable for every high school student to have completed a basic military qualification course.

Now a little bit about me before I continue. My name is Timmy Yorke, I am currently in grade eleven. I joined the Canadian Army Primary Reserve with the Prince Edward Island Regiment on February second of this year. I am currently on week three of the four week basic military qualification course which is the first in a series of several courses intended to turn civilians into trained members of the armed forces.

According to a study done by the Canadian Education Association, high school students are reporting increasingly high levels of stress stemming from academic, social and family difficulties, with minimal knowledge as to how to effectively manage stress. The study also stated that because students are poorly managing their stress, primarily using methods such as excessive video game use, self harm, and engaging in risk behaviors such as drug and alcohol use, they are at a much higher risk for mental illnesses. If students and teenagers were taught better methods to handle their stress it is possible that there would be lower rates of mental illness. In an article written by Global news in 2013, Dr. Michael Ungar, who is a Dalhousie University social worker, said that we’re not necessarily giving kids always enough responsibility, exposure to positive kinds of risk, or enough challenges. He said “I’m not sure we’re always preparing our kids to launch out into the world.” But if all students had a basic military course they would have been equipped with all of the necessary tools to properly cope with stress in a healthy manner.

Another issue many students face is having poor time management skills. Many students have not been taught the skills and strategies required to have good time management. This often results in students not being able to get assignments handed in on time, and creates even more stress. This is often not even because students are incapable of managing their time properly but because they have not been taught how to manage their time properly and have never been in a situation they have to manage their time very carefully for more than a few days.

During the basic military qualification course, recruits are given various techniques to control the frontal lobe of the brain which controls stress. This allows recruits to cope with stress in a proper, healthy manner, so that even though they are forced to endure large amounts of stress, they can ensure that it does not negatively affect their mental health. As well, recruits are also able to sleep limited hours during their training often getting as little as 3 hours a night. So, once they have completed their training they require very limited sleep in order to function. Which proves very useful in civilian life especially in school where late nights are often required in order to get assignments and projects in on time. Recruits are also taught how to properly manage their time, and then given very little time to complete a multitude of task so that they have an opportunity to practice what they have been taught so that it becomes ingrained in them. All of these skills are invaluable to civilian life, and especially school life.

So, to summarize all I’ve said in the last 5 minutes, according to multiple studies completed by Canadian Education Association and Global News students in present day handle stress very poorly and it is having very negative effects on their mental health. Combine this with not being able to deal with the low amount of sleep often associated with exams and large assignments or projects. However, there is an easy solution to this problem, if every high school student was required to take a basic military training course every student will have been given all the tools they need to handle stress properly, and healthily. As well as being conditioned to require low amounts of sleep and taught how to manage their time well. This would allow students to lower unhealthy levels of stress, which would allow students to improve their mental health and in turn reduce the amount of mental illnesses in students, and improve their overall social, and academic success in high school and the rest of their life.