Omo… school life isn’t easy, and when the competition is fierce, it can be really hard for students to keep up. Things change so fast, everything is moving so rapidly that if you’re not up-to-date, you’d be left behind. I believe that there is a reason why it’s only in primary schools that they use positions, and from secondary schools, students stop getting positions. So, everyone simply gets their grade, and no one has to have the 49th position out of a class of 50 students.
Yeah, it places unnecessary pressure on the students, but it will be more demoralizing than anything, trying to crawl your way to the top. This is because then you won’t have to deal with just your grade, you’re also dealing with the position. Many times, students can get straight As, but a mark or two will be the difference between the first and second position. And as a result, the person who came second would start feeling depressed just because of one mark, even though they have a stellar result.
So yeah, the school is such a competitive place, and I believe that it should never be so. School should be all about learning and becoming a more useful member of society. It’s not a game where you have to be better than your peers. It’s okay to compare yourself to your peers from time to time, but only as a form of motivation. It starts getting toxic when you want to beat them.
You see someone getting straight As, and your prayer isn’t to get straight As, but to beat the person. That means, even if he got 95, you won’t be happy with 94.9. It has to be anything from 96 and above. I’ve seen firsthand the pressure people place on themselves that is not needed. People have enrolled in extra lessons, not because they needed it, but because someone else was taking it. Back when I was in school, I knew someone who was an habitual customer of extra lessons. He took lessons in the morning, before class, in the evening after class, he still did serious reading at home, and in the night, he went to night classes.
All of this on one head! This is why during exams, when the stress and the pressure peak, you start seeing different displays. Some lose their sanity temporarily, others sleep off during exams and won’t be woken up until long after it’s over, some of them fall sick and miss out totally on everything. And to cope with the stress and pressure, some of them turn to drugs. A friend of mine is addicted to coffee now because he used to take it to stay awake at night. He doesn’t drink it, for him to feel the kick, he has to either lick it or chew the damn thing. Yeah!
Students have to learn that you can be the best without breaking your back. And in this big, wide world, the podium is not so small that only one person can be the best. We can all be the best. We can all get top grades, we don’t have to be better than someone else, we can all be at the top. We simply have to do our best and make sure that we learn the right things in school.
Well, it is what it is.
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