I just had an epiphanic moment and am going to channelize it into the following post.
Now. We human beings have undoubtedly been brought up to face the (so to speak) throes that competition can actually throw at us at various points in our life. And as our society would have it, life without competition is a life not lived at all. A little push and a little shove; ok, make that a sizeable push and a sizeable shove, and boy are we on our way to approach where to we set out to be. Whose leg, hand, limbs altogether, integrity, respect, honour, space and mind we stamp is something we just stamp, forget about and move on with.
And as the calendar pages have shuffled by, we've grown to review competition as something we're too civil and grown up to engage in and have somewhere down the line, coined the term "healhty competition", which we are now not afraid to possess and be "politically correct" about.
Every culture has had its own style of upbringing with its own dose of "how to live a competitive life. wait. make that a healthy competitive life". And in our collective culture which I shall take the liberty of calling "Indian" (not to be mistaken as the identification of our nationality), one very prominent feature of stealthily building those competitive soul in our being is in the form of academics. Society has made it a point (even today) to have the world revolve around doctors, engineers and the new brand of academic species I'd like to call the MBA graduate. How students training to be any or none of the above doesn't matter, as long as its done.
Similarly, what does matter above and beyond everything else is how well we score in our academic life. Who came first in class, who topped school, who topped who-which-what-where-and-how is all that matters. With all this rubbish are born those whom I'd love to call the "marks sharks". These species are the ones who just cannot suffice by trying to top the class and make do with knowing just their own marks. And it is with this concept that my epiphanic thought began.
Elizabeth Kubler Ross gave the world of psychological thought her very popular and well used concept of the 5 stages of grief. To get a glimpse into this concept, click here. These stages were given to help understand the phase of grief human beings go through in order to deal with the grief and the griever most efficiently. These stages are as follows (just to jog your memory, those who know and have forgotten)...
1) Denial
2) Anger
3) Bargaining
4) Depression
5) Acceptance
I've come to believe that when a student gets his/her marks, they also undergo these 5 stages, and sometimes quite prominently at that.
1) Denial - "shucks, I couldn't have got such marks!!"
2) Anger - "those stupid examiners, it's all their fault!"
3) Bragaining - "ok, so I promise I'll work hard next time but can you please give me that 000.0005 mark that's missing from my paper!!!"
4) Depression - "how am I going to face my life from now on?"
5) Acceptance - "yeah so I got those marks, let's wait and watch for the next. I'm sure I'm going to top."
And that's how we live in this viscious cycle of marks, grief and this farce of a thing I call academic competition. Ooops, I mean "healthy competition."
I wonder whatever happened to learning (n.) in this process.
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Interesting post, Babushka. I like the way you link Kubler Ross' grief cycle with what several students go thru in our country when they see their marks. This relates well to recent news of PUC results, where both toppers and suicide cases have got coverage from the media...reinforcing the idea of marks = success/self worth/self esteem.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great writing! :)
very very well written babs, n as ur frnd monisha said- even i like the way you linked kubler ross grief cycle with the students.
ReplyDeleteit is indeed quite a psycho- logical side of u, i dont think i was even aware of it. channelization of thoughts in a very good way,i must say!!!
you know in d process of writing this, we usually forget that sometimes the so called 'healthy competition' is actually a healthy competition and just that!! nobody is interested in tearing apart people fr marks or giving headaches to people by calling them unnecessary and asking fr their marks( which people enjoy to keep to themselves at times)..
have u ever pondered, how parents react wen their child first learns how to speak, walk, study on his/her own, their hardwork is paid off wen they are announced as merit students. my mother once went on the stage to collect my award fr being the best student in school, tears in her eyes, shaking, proud, with people congratulating her frm every corner.SOMETIMES THATS ALL THAT MATTERS.
sometimes, perception is wat differs because NOT everyone falls in these categories of :
1) Denial - "shucks, I couldn't have got such marks!!"
2) Anger - "those stupid examiners, it's all their fault!"
3) Bragaining - "ok, so I promise I'll work hard next time but can you please give me that 000.0005 mark that's missing from my paper!!!"
4) Depression - "how am I going to face my life from now on?"
5) Acceptance - "yeah so I got those marks, let's wait and watch for the next. I'm sure I'm going to top."
BUT its wen u go to ur parents and siblings with the joy of ur hardwork been paid off, by announcing it to them that u hold the position of a merit student and the reactions and emotions and love and blessings that u receive is everything worth more than ur MARKS and the so called healthy competition. though their blessing are always with us but that special joy and satisfaction that u see on their faces( observation as our important tool) is something that is peaceful, beautiful and is the biggest acheivement and there is no harm in celebrating little joys in life!!!
yours is definitly a good epiphanic thought, but just like not every ugly dark looking fly is poisonous and harmful, similarly not every person who bothers to know about us or our marks is intending to intrude someones privacy but might just be clearing his/her own position.
another thing, as far as learning is concerned i remember Dr APJ Abdul Kalam as he once said,',"Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life...." and thats wat learning is to me. you cant teach anybody anything but you can make them think and believe me almost everyone who wants to move ahead in life knows this mantra and uses it.
but thinking should be channelized in the right way as well :))))))
its not the number game( marks) that matters but the joy that u can give to ur family and loved ones and to the ones who pray fr ur success always is everything that matters to me and many moore like me.
im sorry if i have wriiten too much ( itni to hum ne college me bhi kabhi baat nahi kari hai), im more emotional in life than the many practical people around.
the Psycho- emotional
sonakshi
@ monisha - thank you! watch out for more writing is all i can say!
ReplyDelete@ sonakshi - hey! so nice to see you here! :) And i LOVE long comments, i love reading :) so please don't hesitate to write, as you have done here. what you have elucidated here is perhaps just another point of view of this whole thing we call competition. It's just that i feel bad that we are made up of things based on numbers that make us the achievers we are. i believe in the higher gestalt that we're made up of - that we're infinitely more capable in every respect, and to be judged by our marks alone is like watching an eclipsed side of things.
as for this comparison, it's not absolute in nature. it is however a grief process - and i firmly believe that those who have expectations (and who doesn't) and don't achieve those expectations, definitely go through those 5 stages at some level. i believe that. and most often, students fail to finish their grieving process and often take extreme steps which i'm sure we all know of.
dear reader - this post pertains to my thoughts and feelings. it is not a post of judgement on those who have topped their school, class, batch or those who are studying to be doctors, engineers or even doing their MBA.
ReplyDeleteAlso, those who get the marks they were expecting or topped their class would definitely not grieve or go through this process unless they want 120/100.
Babushka, I enjoy your writing. I always have. You certainly are creatively expressive but sometimes I do wonder if it is judgment you are passing on another's way of life... What with the marks sharks and the grieving process, it's hard to see you not toeing the thin line we know exists between judgment and understanding. I know that this post hurt someone's feelings. I also know where this person comes from. As counselors I think it's very important that we know our words can hurt and our judgments can impair.
ReplyDeleteDon't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.
- Robert Frost
I'm glad that this post links what we study and what you believe but sometimes, we fail to realize that we fit what we believe to what we study. The theory you have stated can also be interpreted in the following way.
1) Denial - "shucks, I couldn't have got such marks!!"
2) Anger (at self) (relate it to survivor's guilt perhaps?) - "Did I really not study? Are these marks a reflection of how intelligent I am? Who people see me as?"
3) Bargaining - "I want more marks, should I talk to my professor about extra credit work?"
4) Depression - "My education system does not allow extra credit work, I'm doomed"
5) Acceptance - "yeah so I got those marks, let's put in more effort. I'm sure if I try harder, I will succeed"
I am not a big fan of our education system and I have suffered for many years because of it. As have you. As have many others.
I wish you wouldn't be hard on those who set store by their marks. Some are not as naturally secure in their world as you are lucky to be.
I miss our class discussions. We may never have them again but I am glad you have this blog. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Keep your pen sharp and your mind sharper.
@ J - I appreciate your inputs and the fact that you do come here, read and enjoy my writing as well.
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking of the "to judge or not to judge" discussion we'd engaged in a long time ago in class (I forget when)... From what I remember, you believed judgement to be something you wouldn't engage in whereas I argued that I do judge and that it has got me to where I am today. Opinions do differ and I'm sure that's one thing we agree on! :)
As for this post, referring to the comment before yours, this post was not intentional in judging/blaming anyone...that's certain. I've always been brought up in a very very different educational set-up which has made me think the way I do today. I'm not afraid to judge (in this context) because I know ALL of us are worth much more than a marks card that comes to us whenever one does.
And that's what I was trying to say. Topper or no topper, failure or no failure, we are ALL worth much more than those numbers that rule us the way they do, despite our capacities as individual beings. And that is what saddens me.
For me to use this post to get at someone or hurt someone was not the case at all. It saddens me to think that this post was a get back at whoever.