TWISHA SINGH
This year a batch of students are giving their first “important exam”: 10th boards, the year everyone warns them about and makes them count their days of happiness.
Our country is exceptional in making students compete against each other.
One of the main reasons can be the vast population or just the high expectations Indian parents have of their children.
“Mera beta engineer banega!” is the first line Farhan’s father says when he sees his newborn child.
The pressure on kids is immaculate these days, at the age of reading novels, being creative and curious, they are handed the big responsibility of choosing their career path which is usually based on their scores.
10th boards are the first stage of this path.
The way 10th standard students are isolated at schools is also a sight to behold, they are not allowed to participate in events as they distract the students and this makes the fear around the exams increase even more.
It is easy to feel as though the world is going to end during this period of life, it is the first emotion one feels when walking down the lanes of childhood, it feels infinite and therefore it must be the end.
This is obviously false as life of an average human is well beyond teenage and is often rich and not as happening as childhood.
The knowledge gained can make individuals feel burdened, it seems as though kids know how bad adulthood is going to be so they go on to resent and grieve the end.
“I remember, I remember” by Thomas Hood is an accurate representation of this feeling, if we just look past the depressing parts of it.
Class 10 students go on to fear these exams as the end when the best they can do is embrace it, embrace the ‘not so infinite nature of life’ and not take adults worries as a life and death situation, they should keep in mind that the adults are also on this planet for the first time and they can also feel scared.
It’s not like this is my 100th year living on this planet either but the artificial stress on the students should be analysed and come with caution.
These exams make brilliant and capable students feel like they are not enough just because they do not meet a golden standard.
The way students are treated, like numbers on a graph is the most dehumanising and inaccurate way of measuring their ‘worth’.
The people who come up with these systems often go through life as though they were never children, they do not look around and wonder about how the world works because they know that they are the kind of people running it.
Taking such a system seriously is the worst type of torture one can inflict on themselves.
Although a student cannot really dismiss it this easily as their environment is still so focused on this system that handling this ‘rigorous’ academic life is solely based on how balanced one is with one’s views.
A fine balance is often the best advice anyone can give.
