Conventional wisdom

What if

What if the only thing weak students ever learned in school was that they were no good? What if the constant pounding of evaluation or the social rejection by society was an unwanted brainstorming of a segment of our student population?
Let us look at it unemotionally from a factual standpoint. Before we try to make our case two things need to be stated. The first is that when they are surveyed on their potential for success in an eventual adult world, kids and teenagers overwhelmingly lean on their school performances to rate themselves. If how well you succeed in school will automatically transfer into a comfortable adult life is still to be proven, the mere perception that it will, is undoubtedly a major factor. Indeed, upon receiving bad marks and a tacit disapproval kids simply stop trying.

The second thing to bear in mind in this discussion is the generally accepted psychological fact that as an individual you tend to become the way you are perceived, and this even more so when you are young.

So still bearing in mind that kids accept the school verdict on their success in adult life (although we wish they would not) and that kids will tend to become the way they are seen by others, let us examine how the unwanted destruction of weak students’ self-esteem actually occurs by following a concrete example.

It starts in kindergarten where, out of a class of twenty kids, four students will be weak. Say 3 boys and one girl to follow the average in this situation. It is the start of the year and the teacher loves everybody (as well she should). Everybody is cute at that age and the fact that four of them have problems expressing themselves is also cute at that point. Every child in the class thinks this school thing is great and that everybody will succeed and have fun in the process.

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Unfortunately things suddenly take a turn for the worse. The four weak students apparently have problems with basic social rules (talk when you are supposed to, observe basic politeness, interact in normal ways with others…). This is the first crack in the submarine. Suddenly Miss Proper (the teacher) nicely reminds them that if they want to be seen as nice people they have to behave according to the rules. Unfortunately, these rules are unclear for our four students and Miss Proper has to show public reprobation.The other kids are quick to note that they do not want to be treated like this so as a result they also show an informal disapprobation. Soon, this disapprobation is met with frustration by the four children who feel cheated by the situation. Expressing frustration through bad behavior the students are met by yet another wave of disapproval by the teacher and the class. The situation looks bleak enough but it is going to get worse, way worse.

Various sorts of tasks are now part of the equation on which marks, formal or informal will be given. The obvious bad marks that the children will get will be a fair reflection of their bad attitude, or so it will be explained to them (over and over). A subtle trend has started to emerge the three weak students boys are keeping more and more to themselves while the weak student girl is still trying to remain friends with the other girls. The year more or less ends up that way.

After a summer where the four weak students dread going back to school, grade one starts. A fresh start. Well, not quite. Miss Proper has shared information with Miss Wellmeaning, the grade one teacher, so she knows “who will need more attention”. Very soon the same pattern starts all over again. This gets repeated for a few years until the kids get to be, say eleven or twelve. Meanwhile some disturbing trends have appeared. The weak students are becoming different from the others in more ways then one. Funny hairdos have appeared, weird clothes mimicking older “weak students” are now proudly worn (their parents explain to the family that kids nowadays all dress this way), the boys are always together but they also hang around teenagers who like an older version of themselves. The weak student girl on her part has given up trying to fit in the “nice” crowd and now hangs around with the boys. She dresses very sexy, wears tons of make up and is rumored to have some sort of a sex life with fourteen year old boys. For those four students, smoking will soon be followed by recreational drugs. Alcohol and sex will be tried much sooner than in the “nice” crowd.

Indeed, by now, our four students have figured out that school will not allow them anything positive so they settle for what they can, more precisely, drugs, early sexual activities, drinking, problems with the law, a reputation, a social life unhindered by parental restriction. In case you do not like the picture I have painted, the statistics on underachieving students back me up spectacularly.

Why? You say. Imagine going to a place where you are constantly (that is the key word here) told about things that you do not understand. Imagine a place where all the effort we ask of you is pointless. Imagine a place where most of the time a sigh precedes your name. Imagine a place where everybody knows you are a failure. Imagine a place where marks are given daily, pounding the point that you are failing. Then ask yourself if you might not be inclined to find a lifestyle at which you are good at, for which you get recognition and respect from your fellow weak students.

Before you ask (with his good in mind) your weak student to mend his ways, to go back to proper life, to give up drugs and the company of bad elements, be sure that school and life in general has something to offer to replace it.

What to make of it

Reading this you might say we have a pretty negative view of school handling of the weak students issue. Maybe, but remember that we do not offer any solution, because it is not our place. We merely wanted to point out that children first go to school with a certain social background and that for some, that background reads pretty much like a life sentence. School unwillingly and often without knowing only officializes what is already there.

We could easily go into any kindergarten class and identify students who will fail in school before they even starts. As a matter of fact it has been done with stunning accuracy many times. Knowing that, we should be more careful before we ask certain kids to put efforts in something that could be called nothing else but a social sucker deal.

In parting, I would like to point out that this discussion can only apply to the last 30 years. Commenting on before that would be pure speculation due to the absence of statistics on the subject and I doubt it would make a great topic of conversation for parties.