Killing Self Esteem Of Students

Time: 10:13 pm
Date: 10 December 2018

As we talked in my last blog1, education system is mostly based on cramming stuff not learning new things. It’s true that teachers help in making a kids future. And the kid himself should decide about his future. So whenever some kid tries to do something new. People stop them from doing it(I don’t why).They compare them to others, they tell them they are useless. Some students following their passion and because of some people (parents, neighbours and teacher) they leave their passion. Most teachers and parents don’t support children to follow their passion. They knowingly or unknowingly do things that make students demotivated. Sometimes the kid is trying to study and teachers still demotivates him. I have seen many times students asking their doubts to teachers and teachers rudely replies “it’s not in your syllabus” and all that stuff. Some teachers don’t like it when you like it when students learn something from internet and ask them doubts related to it.

Story Time

This happened to me last year (2017). My school has this yearbook/magazine in which students can publish(only if selected) their articles. I wasn’t always enthusiastic about writing and publishing articles when I was a kid. When it was announced that students can start submitting their articles. I was determined to get my articles published this time. I decided to write on 2 topics, they were, ‘Books’ and 'Fidget Spinners’2 (which were the latest fab of that year, it was even featured in Youtube rewind3). That night I was awake past midnight to complete the articles. I submitted them next morning. Few days later I came to know that both of my articles will be published(usually one one article per person is published), I was on cloud nine. I started telling friends to be ready for my mind boggling articles.

The Day Things Changed Forever

One day, My friend who was in the editorial board came to me and asked me to change name in one of my article. To which I denied and clearly told him “It’s OK if he doesn’t publish my article but i won’t change my name. I am not gonna give someone else credit for the hard work I did”. Later, I was called by two teachers who were head of the editorial board of the magazine (let’s call them Mrs. ABC and Mr. XYZ). The moment I entered the room, Mrs. ABC rudely yelled “Do You consider yourself a big writer or something”. I was not used to this kind of yelling at me, so I got nervous and started hyper-ventilating4. She started talking rudely and claimed that I copied it from internet. They asked me questions related to my article which I answered. Both Mrs. ABC and Mr. XYZ made me write a sample article to prove that I didn’t copy it from internet. Most of the members of the editorial board were my friends, I was really humiliated. After writing the sample article and proving that I wrote the articles myself. When I finished writing, Mr. XYZ came to and asked me to change the name on one of the articles which I refused. I asked him not to publish my articles because I didn’t want to give my credit to someone else. But Mr. XYZ said things like “Your articles are and we want to print them both but we can only print one of each student” and “Even if the students don’t know you wrote it or not, we know that you wrote it”. So I unwillingly changed name on one of the article.

The Day We Received Our School Magazine

I had been telling all my friends and teachers to read my articles but little did I know there was a much bigger surprise waiting for me. So, when we got the school magazine, I found out that they didn’t publish the article with my name and published the other one which didn’t have my name. I was really furious. I couldn’t believe that I was cheated like this. I told about this to my parents too. They were furious. But as we talked in our last blog1teachers sometimes cut extra marks of some students because they get pissed off by students. So, I didn’t do anything even after many people told me do so. I learnt a very important lesson that day that people are really selfish and just want stick with you as long as they get benifited by you(like parasite5 ). So after that day I decided that I would never write any article or poem anything for my school magazine even if asked.

How I Got Over It

I was always excited about writing articles. I wanted to show people my writing skills but because of that incidence my self esteem was broken and I refused to write articles. But I decided to get over it, so, after about one year I started blogging. Now I can write whatever I want without seeking someone else’s permission. Now, no one can take credit for my work and I do it because I love what I do.!

At the end I want everyone specially students to never lose self esteem because of what others think of you. The most important thing is what you think about yourself and the people whom love think about you. Life is too short to think and worry about what other think about you. This world is really cruel the moment you stop and think about these petty things, it will crush you.

Thanks

Surreal

P.S.: I don’t have any bad feelings for Mr.XYZ because he is a nice guy and he didn’t yell on me. I don’t talk to Mrs.ABC now.

footnotes

Indian Education System: https://surreal30.blogspot.com/2018/11/indian-education-system.html
Fidget Spinners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidget_spinner
Youtube Rewind 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlsCjmMhFmw
Hyper-ventilation: https://www.healthline.com/symptom/hyperventilation
Parasite: an organism which lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other’s expense.

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