Wednesday, May 11, 2016

If Your Kid Is Not Asking for Help But Needs It … Step In and Help

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.

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