Sorry Buzzfeed. Failing at School is not cool!
Before I start, let me tell you that
I was never a topper at school. I was an average student who struggled with
some subjects, was moderately good at a few and may be was good at one or two.
I happened to see the below video from Buzzfeed. I felt the video tries to
misguide school/college goers a great deal. Below are the aspects I feel the
video has got horribly wrong:
1. The video tries to glorify being an
under achiever at school: One of the parameters at doing well in school is
getting good marks. Other parameters being good at arts, craft, sports and the
works. Most of the people who are featured in the video have nothing to boast
about regarding academic scores. They even sound a bit proud about it. What is
the glory in getting bad scores?
2. Getting good marks at school involves
hard work: Anyone who has scored good marks in school will tell you that it did
not come easy to them. There is a lot of work that goes in to scoring good
grades. It is an indication of the consistency of hard work that a person can
put in over a period of time. Come to think of it, it is this consistent hard
work that helps people become achievers in life - be it in the field of art, sports or
corporate.
3. Is the video promoting the culture of
being dumb? In 100 meters race, the parameter that is used to judge the winner
is time that is taken to cover the 100 meters. One can argue that it should be
the poise with which a person runs which should be made the criteria.
Similarly, marks indicate a person is bright. Marks alone doesn’t indicate intellect.
But it is one of the parameters. The video tries to say that marks doesn’t matter
at all. It is evident from the video that except Sonia (the lady in blue) no
one else had good marks in school and they are quite proud about it!
4. What have these people achieved in
life? I don’t mean to be mean or judgemental. I am just asking an objective question.
Other than making 5 minute videos that people watch and forget forever, what
contribution have these people made to the real world? Also, these 5 minute
videos are a fad which aren’t going to last forever. If these people are going
to focus their energies on doing just this, how will they have a career? More importantly,
if they don’t have the discipline to get decent marks in school, will they be
able to consistently deliver good scripts for videos like these?
5. Not everything is easy or enjoyable
in life: Gaining knowledge, landing a job from tens of thousands of
competitors, reading books, making money are all difficult aspects of life. The
video somewhere sends out the message that the difficult things in life can be
done away with. It hints at the fact that rigour is not needed.
I understand the fact that the video
is trying to point out flaws in our education system (I hope so, at least). But
this is not the way to go about it. This video is just being populist and
lazily appealing to a bunch of people who don’t work to work hard in life at
all. Then how do we show flaws in the education system? I do not know! Then why
do I criticise them? Because I do not sit with multiple social media platforms
with the sole aim of making videos and listicles. It is not my day job. But it
is the day/night and full-time job of people at Buzzfeed! Hence the criticism.
So guys and girls at Buzzfeed, there are people who have given their
blood and sweat to achieve the marks they got in school and college. There are
people who work 9 hours a day in a corporate job trying to make meaningful
contributions to the economy and the society that they live in. They are as
cool as you guys who make fun videos. Do not dumb down life.
