Something cropped up recently and a derisory remark was made about someone's poor performance in something completely trivial. It was an unnecessary and cruel remark.
It reminded me of a situation in my life more than 60 years ago in a history class at school.
I was always near the top of the class in English Language, English Literature and did pretty well in Mathematics and Geography and was middling in most of the rest of the subjects. However, in the fifth year I came bottom in the school in the year end history exam. One spiteful little toerag decided to ask the Master who was bottom. I will always remember the History Master's response. "If you have a system where someone is top then there will inevitably be someone at the bottom." That same toerag came to my house before the GCE asking me to help him with his maths.
The subject of top or bottom was never mentioned again.
I'm told that nowadays no one is allowed to be 'top' or 'bottom' in school because it might mean some children having mental problems or low self worth.
The reality of life is that that in itself won't stop kids making fun of those they perceive to be less able in a particular way. If we want to do something about the problem then we have to have a positive system and encourage people to do what they are good at and not necessarily persist with things for which they have no aptitude.
After all when I was in New Zealand an electrician or plumber commanded a much higher hourly wage than a dentist. [The caveat there is that the fee for dental care included a vast amount of overheads compared with an electrician].
"Something cropped up recently and a derisory remark was made about someone's poor performance in something completely trivial. It was an unnecessary and cruel remark."
ReplyDeleteThanks for this Graham. I'll hang on to it and post it to those folk that are mean or use hurty words in regard to my performance. It isn't a regular occurance and I'm rarely subject to nasty remarks more than once a week.
Adrian, I'm still laughing. The idea of someone using hurty words towards you is a sight I'd love to see. I bet they would come off worse mentally (and probably physically).
DeleteGraham, I assure you that I'm very thin skinned.
DeleteIt's really most unpleasant finding myself dropped amongst these giant, hairy, porridge gobbling, Fifeish heathens. This is the women, the men are far, far worse but both are foul mouthed racialists.
I'll give you an example.
This morning I called at the wee hovel inhabited by an unfortunate native. (He fell from a combine and is half crippled). I knocked and walked in to enquire whether they needed anything from the Co-Op. I was met by a laughter and shouted ridicule. The culprit? Little Blair who is seven months old, he always laughs when he sees me. Tiny, fat, shity, freckly racialist bastard that he is.
There has been a lot of meanness in the air and I am tired of it. I think that it is better that grades aren't posted for all to see as they did in past times. Of course, students can tell who stands out and who struggles but let's encourage kindness and support.
ReplyDeleteI'm sad to say, Ellen, that meanness of spirit seems almost to be the norm at the moment and I find it unnecessary and upsetting.
DeleteYou are right, Graham. Let's you and I and all your readers keep spreading kindness and hope it becomes contagious!
DeleteInteresting subject. The approach to finding ways to blunt the trauma of being last, I believe, is key to the solution. Do away with last, lowest, bottom. Evaluate in groups that blend with each other. and focus on goals to improve.
ReplyDeleteWomen have been placed throughout history as the bottom. No pun intended.
Maywyn, when I came last in the history exam i just accepted it and got on with the things I liked and was good at. I suppose I could have tried harder but history exams needed lots of memory which is not my forté so I concentrated on things I was good on.
DeleteI've always thought that if someone is reasonable at just one thing, it doesn't matter what it is, then they have cause for self-esteem.
ReplyDeleteI think, Tasker, you have just said in one sentence what I was trying to get over in many more words.
DeleteI don't think I ever got over that feeling of rejection when being left as the last lone kid on the sports field when the teams at hockey were being picked. I know I was rubbish at Games, but still... (sob)...
ReplyDeleteI can imagine. Give me a sainthood later but I had observed what you describe many a time. Being good at sports, I (lucky me) was often one the team leaders who chose their team. Never say I don't go against the trend. One day I had an idea. I must have been about sixteen/seventeen. So, I started with choosing the weakest, then slowly working my way up; the other team leader glancing at me sideways, maybe thinking I'd lost my marbles. My PE teacher didn't roll her eyes. She knew exactly what I was doing. And what a match that was. My "weaklings" doing themselves (and me) proud.
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JayCee I can understand where you are coming from and I felt the same. I went to a Grammar School where 'games' was paramount. I had a lung condition (which still kills people) but the school refused to agree to me not participating in 'games'. I was always the last to be chosen. Until.....and here I feel another post coming on.
DeleteUrsula, I can well imagine you being good at games. I think your approach shows a consideration that few show and I suspect you earned great loyalty as a reward.
DeleteOur grading system has changed several times since my own school days, and as I have no children or grandchildren of my own, I'm not really keeping up any more. I think nowadays no grades are given until at the end of year 6 though. (Which is really year 7 now, as nowadays there is also a compulsory year 0.) Back in my childhood, we got grades from grade 1. I can't recall that there was any official ranking of who was top or bottom - but everyone kind of knew anyway (or thought they did). What struck me while reading this post is that even in adult life, that usually continues...
ReplyDeleteMonica, like you I came through a grading system from primary year 2 onwards. I hadn't though about it in adult life but the more I do the more I realise you are absolutely correct..
DeleteI always try and encourage folk to do their best, whatever their aptitudes. We all have different skills and each person can be proud of what they can do well naturally.
ReplyDeleteRegarding being the bottom in the class, I often used to get top and it was always embarrassing to have it pointed out in class.
Yes, Margaret, it's very interesting that children deride those at the top (probably out of jealousy) and at the bottom out of sheer unpleasantness.
DeleteKarma sometimes does a better job of bringing someone down a peg or 2 than we can. Like JayCee said in her comment above I also remember those picking sides of sports teams at school, feeling relieved that I was never the last one left but feeling for those who were.
ReplyDeleteAmy, I used to try and live my life bearing in mind the laws of Karma. I don't think about it now and I just try and not do to other people things I wouldn't like them to do to me.
DeleteI like your sentence to encourage people to do what they are good at.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Red. I think it's a good philosophy.
DeleteWhen one of my grandson's was at school in Miami, he would receive an 'Outstanding Achievement Award' at the end of every week, along with all the other children. It rather defeated the purpose!
ReplyDeleteYes, Cro, I've heard of that and to me it is more likely to engender mediocrity more than anything else.
DeleteWhen I see children behaving cruelly, I it strikes me as a teachable moment. There is no excuse for grown adults to say hateful and unneccessarily malicious things to each other, but many do. I will never understand the motivation for this kind of behavior. It strikes me as a mental illness.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I detest people saying malicious things to or about each other. Obviously there are things which one may say (particularly about politicians) that are justified if they are considered and true. Nastiness is quite another matter and, unfortunately, seems to me to be more prevalent in this age of social media.
DeleteBad habits...bad attitudes...of humans appear to be getting worse day by day. The desire to deride others, to hurt others, both emotionally and physically is not a desirable trait to have. Perhaps too much coverage is given to the nastiness, and not enough given to the good. More light should be shone upon the goodness...kindness, thoughtfulness, respect etc.
ReplyDeleteLee, I could not agree more!
DeleteI may be wrong, but the rise in this kind of nastiness seems to parallel the rise in social media use. It seems that the instant nature of social media robs people of any kind of reflexive consideration of how their posts will come across.
DeleteThere is no point to unkindness but there are people who take great pleasure in it, it seems. I find that people say things on social media that they would never say to a person's face. You get the outraged response, but you are physically safe. People seem to like that. Someone posts about a renovation that they are happy with. Someone else needs to mock their poor taste. There is no point to that unkindness. None.
DeleteWill and Debby, you are right, of course (in my opinion) the social media has made it easier to bring the worst out of human behaviour when reacting with our fellow humans.
DeleteThis will sound like I'm bragging about my own achievements but that's not the case, rather highlighting how teachers can damn some while praising others.... At my high school we had an annual prize giving evening. You always knew in advance if you'd won a prize as you'd be given a book token and the book had to be back at school ready for the evening. Whilst there were prizes awarded for numerous reasons, each A-Level subject had a prize for the best student (usually based on the final marks in the A-Level exam) and I was awarded this for physics and went back to school to collect the prize during my first year at University.
ReplyDeleteThe weird thing was that I'd already been awarded the prize the year before when I was in lower sixth. At the time I was the first person in the schools history to win the same A-Level prize twice -- given the school no longer has a sixth form it's likely I was the only person ever to be awarded an A-Level prize twice. As I said this could look like me bragging, but think for a minute as to what situation would result in me being awarded the A-Level prize a full year before taking the exam........
The reason was simply that the teachers decided that none of the students that took the A-Level exam that year deserved the prize. I'm fairly certain a number of students passed the exam (class size for A-Level physics was small, around 10-15 kids, but still I doubt they would all have failed) so to this day I still don't fully understand why they gave the prize to me instead, but it can't have felt great to whoever was the top student the year above me, and it's always felt odd to me that teachers would act in that way to students they are meant to be encouraging.
Thanks for the comment, Mark. I cannot recall whether my school had prizes but if it did I never got one (that I can recall) but any of my tops would have been of the class rather than of the year (there were three classes per year until the Sixth Form). I did, however, get a prize in Sunday School: "Base Camp to Lang Tang Two". I can't remember breakfast but can recall that from around 70 years ago.
DeleteEvery year when school exam results come out, the TV shows footage of children opening their envelopes and then having paroxysms of joy - "I got three A's and five A stars!" etc.. But of course there is an obverse to all that - the kids who open envelopes that confirm their failure, their idleness, their lack of ability or their disengagement. No - we never see that side of things but the school system is built upon pecking orders. You can't have one without the other.
ReplyDeleteNeil, unfortunately, human and animal and even plant nature being what it is all of life is based upon a pecking order, domination and an ability to survive. We humans are just nastier about it and should know better.
DeleteKids can be cruel but I often wonder where they learn to be like that. Parents need to set a good example
ReplyDelete.
Diane, in my experience parents are are often worse than children.
DeleteHello GB!
ReplyDeleteI must weigh in on this as I was heartily bullied in grade school... it's not the system's fault. This namby-pamby "give everyone a prize" stuff is garbage. There are things in life that you have to learn, and removing all obstacles is not the way to end up with well-balanced adults who can take care of themselves.
1. Some kids are absolutely cruel. Not accidentally hurtful - they can be purposely cruel. This is an important lesson to learn as a kid, because you need to know how important it is to very carefully choose who your friends are, because the kind of people you associate with are the kind of people you are going to end up like.
2. I was bullied not because I was bad at anything, but the exact opposite. I found school very enjoyable, and most subjects were very easy for me, and I was constantly bashed for being "teacher's pet" because I *earned* my good grades (had nothing to do with the teachers liking me).
3. Instead of worrying that no one should be "bottom" or "lose", we should make sure the grading system stays in place, so that we can help kids find the subject or path in life that they ARE good at, and they enjoy. Once you're an adult, your job performance *is* going to constantly be evaluated, you are constantly going to have to push to succeed, and a school system that refuses to grade kids because it might hurt their feelings is just damaging them for the rest of their life. It's like a parent who gives in to every whim of their child (think of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia Dursley and their son Dudley from the Harry Potter stories) - and they create a tyrant child who demands their own way and goes on to make the lives of everyone they come in contact with miserable for the foreseeable future. It's madness.
4. When I was in fourth grade (around 9 years old) a thirteen year old boy was hitting me on the school bus. No one would help me - not the bus driver, not the school principle, no one. The boy would slam his biggest school book into the back of my head, or bring it down on the top of my head - he thought it was making him popular with the other bullies. Since no one would help me, I went to my father. He told me how to make a proper fist, and how to properly give this bully a black eye. So the next day, when I got on the bus and saw stars after being hit in the head by a massive math book (again), I turned around and punched that boy square in the eye. He went home with a massive black eye. This particular boy was the son of a police officer, and their family went to our church. That evening at dinner, the phone rang, and it was that boy's father, asking my father if he could confirm where his son got the black eye. My father nearly swallowed his tongue. But I can tell you one thing... that boy never hit me again. There are just some things in life that you have to learn the hard way, and adults should not run around smoothing out all the bumps, because the bumps are where you learn to deal with things.
5. No one is good at everything. I was horrible at math(s), for example. It's important to fail at things so that you learn how to be gracious when you don't win. Also so that you keep looking until you find something that you love and that you do well with. Losing is a much more important lesson than winning, and we shouldn't take that away from kids.
Incredibly talented, multi-MVP award winning basketball player Michael Jordan said it well:
"I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
That, Marcheline, should have been the first comment and would have attracted so many more. Obviously I agree with you particularly about confronting bullies. The once caveat is that you have to win at the first attempt. You and I both did. However I fear for those that didn't.
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