Friday 17 October 2014

education at it's worst

Hey everyone,

 So the last thing I want to do is have a huge rant and get myself worked up about this issue, but I feel that in order to express my feelings I must use my literary skills to my advantage. After all, nothing makes a piece of writing shine like a flame of passion!
 To begin with,  I'll give you the facts; I attend a grammar school with approximately 120 (possibly more now) students in each year group. It's a selective school, meaning that you need to take an entrance exam at the age of 11. So clearly, there are a lot of people in the school striving to do their best, but also a lot of people with natural intelligence. 
 Now, every year, the school hosts a prize evening, commending the people with the most passion, or highest attainment in certain subjects. This is all well and good, until you sit there in your final and seventh year at the school and realise that not ONCE, have you received any sort of recognition, be it success in a particular subject, passion for something, or talent in a sport. Then you think back through the years to who else is in your position, and you see that it is pretty much the same people having to sit and hear how well others are doing, when they too are succeeding and progressing in their learning.
 As I said, I feel strongly about this, as I feel it a disgustingly unfair system, however my aim is not to take anything from the girls who do win prizes, as a majority do deserve them, however there are a few which I feel could have been more fairly allocated, or simply not at all. This is a topic which has been bugging me every year, and now I have finally plucked up courage to speak out about it.
 People will say I'm jealous and bitter, and I will completely agree with them, but it is not through my own doings. This system of prize giving has made me dislike my school, but more importantly dislike my classroom self for not being the best - not a feeling a teenage year old girl should have, what with all the other stresses we must endure.
 Giving praise is absolutely necessary in education, but why is that praise often in selective schools only allocated to those who achieve multiple As or A*s?
Many grammar schools and colleges wonder why the enthusiasm and thirst for learning is slowly dripping from their hierarchical education system, yet will they look in the mirror and see that they are the ones that need to make a change? Not a chance.

Charlie x

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