The Best Advice I Ever Got
School can be a very intimidating place. It is supposed to be a place of learning and you are expected to be better off when you have graduated. School is where you make friends (and sometimes enemies) some who last for a lifetime. So how intimidating can it be? With standardize testing at pretty much every level ranging from elementary to tertiary level entrance exams, it seems as though students are pitted against everyone in their peer group from an early age, the results of which only serves to remind them of their ranking. Oh the pressure!
Imagine the nerve of the education boards to pit a student from a well to do private school versus a student from a "lowly" public school and they are supposed to be on an equal platform. One may have a tutor, parents that care and dedicated teachers behind them and the other is just scraping by with the bare minimum. Can you envision how intimidating this can get?
My mother is a very shrewd person. Having been a teacher for most of her career some 34+ years in all, I would definitely admit that she knows a thing or two about school. She has practically seen it all and she did her very best (along with my father who was also a teacher for 27 years) to ensure that I had the correct mindset when it came to school. There was one particular piece of advice that had a lasting impression on me and I will share this with you today: THE CLASSROOM IS THE GREAT EQUALIZER.
It is profound in its simplicity, but what does it mean? When many people look at standardized testing as a major problem, this piece of advice has forced me to look at it in an opposite light. The fact that in order to move to the next level everyone in your peer group has to take the same test means that you have an equal opportunity. This is reassuring because all perceived advantages or disadvantages are out of the window the moment the test begins. Something that you should be mindful of is that preparation is crucial. The students with all the trappings and support may be better prepared if taken at face value. But you should always assess your level of preparedness and take the required mitigating steps to reduce the handicap.
Another truth is that whether you made the bare minimum requirements of passing or you excelled with perfect grades; you start the next level with a clean slate. This is probably my most comforting fact about school. I can recall my days at university sitting in certain classes with "gurus", who despite the subject matter would pass with apparent ease while I would barely make the passing grade. But the pride I would have at the beginning of the next semester knowing that their A and my C from the previous class did not matter anymore and we both had to start a fresh. This definitely does not mean that you should have low aspirations, but if you know that you gave your best effort and it resulted in only a passing grade, hold your head high and move on.
So the next time you sit down in a classroom at the beginning of a semester or course, pay no mind to who is sitting next to you and whether or not they know more than you. It does matter, where they come from, their social status or what grade the made they semester before. The fact that you are exposed to the same information means that you have as good a chance as they do to moving on.
Until next time remember: As long as you have life, you should live it to your fullest potential.
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