ProfLERoy goes off-topic today to highlight a provocative
and unsettling story from a local high school student. Her effort is brave, and
she calls attention to a plight that is likely to confront many students—especially
those who are under pressure to succeed. Highlights (quoting from the student's article):
From the beginning Uni students are put against each other.
This environment of intense competition feeds into many students’ desires to
improve themselves, but it can cause anxiety and stress for others. While it
could be debated that the kind of student who crumbles under this kind of
pressure shouldn’t be at Uni, that would only limit the diversity of the
student body even more.
Because we are a community of academically gifted people,
many feel the need to show that they are superior by bragging about their
grades. Some outright brag about getting good grades, but others choose to
humble brag. A common Uni humble brag is something along the lines of “I only
studied for 20 minutes and I got a 98.” Another example would be “Ughhh, I
failed this! I only got a 96.”
Because Uni has developed the culture of the humble brag and
assumes everyone is doing well in school, this often silences the people that
need the most help. I know from personal experience that asking for help,
especially as a subbie or freshman, felt like the hardest and most humiliating
thing I’d have to do. I was used to knowing the answers and helping other
people, not the other way around. I felt like asking for help was showing
weakness, and I was also a socially awkward 13 year-old who was trying to make
friends. I thought that people wouldn’t want to be friends with me if I wasn’t
smart.
Asking for help in class was hard, because I thought if I
didn’t understand a topic I was dumb. Asking a friend was fine if it was one
problem, but once they figured out I didn’t understand the whole topic, I felt
judged. It was hard to improve my grades because I was so focused on not
looking stupid that I neglected learning in the process.
It is true that people hold themselves to different
standards, but it’s one thing to say you failed when you got an A or B, and
another to say you failed when you got a D or F. This mindset that you need to
constantly be one-upping someone else is detrimental to both parties.
I have been silenced by my fear of failure many times.
Freshman year, I did not understand geometry. Geometry and I did not get along.
We never really understood each other, and because of this I suffered. I am
lucky enough to have a dad who, for some inexplicable reason, says that
geometry is “fun.” I couldn’t have disagreed more. Every night we would spend
at least an hour at the dining room table trying to learn geometry. Most nights
would end in some kind of fight or tears of frustration.
Because my dad saw me struggling with geometry, I didn’t have
to ask for help, which was a big deal to me. I didn’t tell many
people that I was spending at least an hour a night trying to understand what
we had learned in class, because I was humiliated. As it was, I still got a C+
in that class. If I had been left to my own devices, my grade would have
suffered more, as would my pride.
....
Thank you for this remarkable article, Beth. For more, see: https://gargoyle.uni.illinois.edu/?q=articles/2016/05/10/senior-column-part-1-how-uni-made-me-feel-failure
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