COLUMN – An advice to pressured students. Standpoint #1

These days, we students need to keep up with loads and loads of school works, responsibility and duty. In this pandemic you are privileged to study even if it’s limited and now online. Almost 26,308,875 learners have registered for school year 2021-2022.

“We are grateful to the parents of our learners who continue to put their trust and support in DepEd and for learning continuity amidst the pandemic,” the DepEd said in a statement.

Last month, September, President Rodrigo Duterte approved a pilot implementation of face-to-face classes for chosen schools and universities in the country.

The Philippines and Venezuela, are the only two countries who have not started opening schools during the pandemic.

How can students cope with a high expectation from parents, who are the ones who should support them. If, and only if I have friend who suffers from this pressure, I would advice him/her to not be trapped in their words.

No student should be in that situation. Although I have never thought of experiencing a scenario like that, I fell sad and locked up.

DOUBLE THE HEAT. Staring in a computer screen all-day bores and tires me, and I can only imagine the nightmare of students like me who at the same time have to be able to cope in a depressing situation.

As Oprah Winfrey once said, “Only surround yourself with people who will lift you higher.”

Giving direct support to students who experience peer pressure is must, an important part of friendship and plays a key role in good educational intellect. They might grow as a normal, extraordinary student rather.

This is not only happening in a single household if we are even talking about this topic.

UNDER PRESSURE, OVERTRIED. As a student myself, I can say I was an honored kid and Louisian. I was, and I think I will never be one again if I won’t be pressured. I think it’s a good thing at least for me. I’m not saying it’s good for all and during these trying times I take that back.

I am afraid of getting pressured again. My parents understand my situation. They know what I go through and support me in what I want and may do.

More students have and will experience this of we won’t do something about it.

It’s best to say that the majority of students have never experienced this. Usually, handling studies with the pressure is more stressful, of course we feel pain. We endure privately it like an ant bite, but carry it out to the public with bullet holes in our body.

I had this former classmate who was a Star. He was just like me, although he is much confident and undeniably super smart. I got to be friends with him.

Every time we would have an activity at school, he would be so conscious about his scores that it went to a point where he would compare his papers to our other classmates.

Until he realized that he was doing the wrong thing after all. I didn’t want to be rude, I just wanted to ask. So I did.

He told me that he cares about his grades when we all do. He told me that he needed to have high scores when others just wanted to. He told me that having a mistake means failure, when I had more errors but I was still happy.

He was telling the truth while executing a lie. Showing all his strength but receiving more than a stab in the back, while he barely had a scratch.

Studying is not about competition. It’s not a race, but a marathon. It’s much more than finishing with a medal on top of a 3 level podium.

Until he stated that his parents aren’t the reason for his suffering. It’s rather because of the sacrifice his parents had done for him to enter USL. It’s because of the money they pour in for his enrollment and studies. The tuition fee, it’s the money.

And if that’s not enough for him to do his best, he would feel disappointment from his parents.

All he wanted was to make his mother and father proud. To value their sacrifice and support. That’s all what I got from him. He still looks on to the day, that he would feel complete. That his mission would be finished.

I think Bruce Lee says it very well, “I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine”. We can change the system, we will end the chain. One column at a time.