Schools don't need to be competitive
Stop defending this morons
Ok I am sorry. I promised you all 2-3 days a week of this stupid newsletter and today will be the third straight. No one should be subjected to having this many of my thoughts be in your inbox, so consider this an apology.
Since today is the weekend I figured I’d do a special issue, focusing on only a single stupid issue.
Mostly, I just saw this and figured that I could turn it into a special weekend issue just because. Without further ado.
Stop trying to force high schoolers to be competitive
I don’t know why this has to be said, but twitter dot com has left me no choice. Turns out, a lot of you idiots online think it’s great to subject kids to stress. For the record I’m referring to this:
Baker shut up
Let’s focus for a second on Baker and then the rest of these idiots.
I’m so glad that Mr. Mayfield is incredibly gifted in throwey ball and never had to worry about actually achieving academic results. Most of us don’t happen to be so lucky (what a shock).
This tweet is really rich from a guy who’s academic struggles amounted to meeting the NCAA minimum GPA requirement. What an immense challenge.
It’s great to see that Mr. Mayfield wants our children to compete just like big bad Baker does on Sundays. But this is stupid, because our kids just don’t need to do that.
Competitiveness might be great for a guy who’s going to the NFL, but for high achieving kids who are stressed in a high pressure and high stakes college environment this is absolutely wrong.
Changing our pointless class ranking system doesn’t make anyone here soft, it makes them cognitive of real mental health concerns and show some understanding of the nature of college admissions and high schoolers.
Grades and class rank have an exceeding amount of influence on a high schoolers life. What college they go to, how much in student loans they’re forced to take out, and how well they’re prepared for high education are all at play here. Finding a way for high achieving students to have one less stressor on them can be, dare I say, beneficial, in helping improve all of those.
For the rest of you
An insane amount of idiots online are also defending this because it’s, “PC Culture,” and it’s, “participation trophy culture.” OK? I would rather have some kids in high school be under less stress academically than risk them being not, “PC enough.”
We know that mental health in schools is a massive problem, so clearly the answer is to do something about it. But, big strong barstool tough guys, who are clearly academically and emotionally strong, don’t care about this. Clearly the best way to fix our educational issues is to strap gladiator helmets onto our kids and have them go at it.
Having taken one education policy class (I received a B+ haters) I can tell you confidently that all these pro-competitveness people are idiots. There’s just no reason for it.
Kids don’t need to be fighting at 14 years old for a high school honor that will help them on college applications. Some, I’m sure, thrive under these high-pressure situations and love the competitive aspect, but why should they get preferential treatment over overworked and overstressed kids trying to get into a decent college.
Also most importantly it turns out that the best school systems in the world don’t do that. Finland, widely regarded as the worlds best public school system, doesn’t have valedictorians or even gifted classes. Hear me out, maybe their success shows that they’re onto something.
This long poorly written rant is now over but buy me a beer and I can easily go into how class ranks reinforce classism, why they’re inherently racist, and why the education system sucks. All this being said, shut up Baker.