Teenagers Are Not Pieces of Meat

Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of human rights states that “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

Unfortunately, it seems to me that the free education I am lucky enough to be provided with is somewhat tainted by the driving attitude of schools these days. The top priority for schools surely ought to be providing students with a fair education; instead they appear to be more concerned with looking good than anything else.

Bizarrely, there are even league tables for schools now, with the schools that score highest in exams at the top and the schools with an average of lower results at the bottom. The intention for this is to see which schools are performing highest. You might say that is fair enough but unfortunately this system just appears to encourage head teachers to force it upon teachers and students that exam results must be ever improving, always climbing higher and higher.

There is an overbearing message shoved down our throats week in, week out. That constant insistence that you can do better; you must do better. This would be a good message if it was there to encourage and support young people, but instead it often comes off as more of a threat. The great message might as well be simply “failure is not an option.”

Students who do well, -and by “well,” I mean achieve higher grades than the average- are praised momentarily, before quickly being given higher targets to achieve, more to strive for, harder pushes. It seems to me that by handing in an outstanding piece of work you are doing little more than setting yourself up for a fall. Teachers will automatically expect work from you to be at the same level as your best yet, preferably higher. If you cannot beat your highest grade then you are more of a failure than those who regularly score lowest in the class during mass testing.

The attitude imposed on me and my peers personally makes me want to step back and perhaps not work so hard in lessons. Why would I want to be part of this machine? Teenagers are just like worker bees or meat to many people in power. The harder you work the more money they earn. Oh yes, because higher in those good old league tables means higher in the social structure, too. Teachers and head teachers of schools which are improving each year with exam results get pay rises and are respected more.

It is true that everyone ought to be able to achieve the best of their ability and do well - in whatever sense of the word they wish. It is, or ought to be, a positive thing that students are encouraged to do well and are ever improving in exam results. It’s just a pity, I think, that the causes of it all may not have the happiness or wellbeing of the children in question at the top of its list of priorities.

As long as we, the teenagers pressured to push ourselves harder and further, go along without rising against it we are half the problem. I want for the people my age who have been shoved down and ordered about for long enough to find strength, fly outside the box and remind those who give us our education that we are living people, not pieces of meat.