Saturday, May 27, 2006

"I hate to come second"

This morning I was playing scrabble with Nivedita. She started bawling after I made a word. I took 'her place', you see. I let her throw a tantrum, thinking she needs to know that you don't always get what you want in life. Sometimes other people get to it first.

Later we counted the points - she got 61, I got 104. She cried some more. 'I hate to come second' she said over and over and over again.

I don't know if all children have a deep competitive instinct. I know nobody likes to lose but is coming second losing? 'You beat papa - he got 57', I pointed out. But that was no consolation.

OK, so now you're thinking we are monster parents who goad our kid to be 'the best' at everything. That's not the case.

We were counting points in scrabble so she could make sense of the 'double letter words' and 'triple word score' markings. Now that she can make words on her own, we wanted her to learn that part of the game as well.

Of course we 'let' her win quite often. Like most parents do. But she has to learn to take defeat in her stride...

Competition ka zamaana
Nivedita attends a school which has no 'exams' till class 5. The students are assessed on the basis of weekly tests and class observation. They are awarded letter grades.

This is a great source of relief - no pressure on kids or parents to cram and vomit out at the end of every term. However, I wonder whether it's simply postponing the inevitable.

Is it any easier to accept the idea of exams at age 10 or 11? Many alternative schools also follow this practice - 'free learning, no exams' till class 7 or 8. After that the child is taken into the regular pattern of schooling. Because, after all one must appear for the board exam.

I would not want my child to be cut-throat competitive but I do want her to aspire for excellence. I want her to try to come first but not cry or feel despondent if she comes in second. Or third, or fourth, or whatever.

This is a very sensitive issue. At least 6 young people have committed suicide in Delhi alone, following the CBSE class 12 result.

18 year old Priyamvada Singh committed suicide by hanging herself from the ceiling fan in her home. She came home and told her parents that she had scored 86% but had, in fact failed. Here's the scary part:

There was little parental pressure on Priyamada... "We never scolded her nor did we ever force her to study," said Ashok Singh, Priyamvaada's father.


Maybe. But more than family is peer pressure. Pressure from external forces - the need to score high to get into a 'decent' college in Delhi University.

In fact there were suicides during the exam itself, back in March. 17 year old Gurjeet Singh Bagga was upset after writing the political science paper in his class XII board exam. He was found hanging from the ceiling fan.

Gurjeet was a student of Modern School, Vasant Vihar while Priyamvada was studying at Delhi Public School, Vasant Kunj. Both are considered to be 'excellent' schools. And well, that may be part of the problem.

According to a report in TOI Delhi, DPS RK Puram produced the highest number of 90%-plus students — 300 out of 1,000 students. At Modern School, Barakhamba Road, 25% of the 376 who appeared for the exams got 90%-plus.

As many as 1,905 city kids have got over 90% marks in the CBSE class XII exams this year, a good 62% more than the number who crossed the magical figure last year... The flip side of the record high marks is that the cut-off for admission to Delhi University would go up by at least 1% in the better colleges.

And from next year, there will be 27% additional reservation. Yes, they say, seats will be increased. But as Mr Arjun Singh clarified today:

The HRD minister... appeared on Friday on TV to say that the 27% quota would be implemented in one go. He ruled out the possibility of the introduction of quota getting delayed in institutions that are not in a position to increase seats for general category students...

So there are trying times ahead. You may not pressure your kid :"Get 90% or else". But that doesn't mean he or she doesn't feel pressured.

And then, some amount of pressure and parental policing is necessary - there isn't the option of Bachelor's in video gaming and Masters in Cartoon Network.

And even as I write this, I know I really should be at home with my daughter... Because this is the time to establish channels of communication, make her feel secure. To temper her 'I hate to come second' with 'It's ok, there will be a next time'...

Gosh, how I hate working Saturdays!

16 comments:

  1. Few years ago, a doctor from Chennai committed suicide when she could not get the course she wanted in PG Entrance.......

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  2. I wonder why we tend to mix excellence with 'coming first' or second...

    A value system that instills the desire to be passionate about life, to discover and delve in to one's interests with freedom would automatically promote excellence. But that's not what we are taught as kids... We start in a rat race at three, and die as rats at seventy. That's life, as they say.

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  3. Well, it's evident that the rate of suicides has increased pretty rapidly in the last few years. And as Gladwell very well puts in The Tipping Point, I guess the multifold improvement of the media in India has certainly affected this behaviour. The more such incidents are highlighted, the more depressed people will do things like these. Suicide IS 'contagious' and has become 'sticky' in our times now. People have become less tolerant all of a sudden.

    But the point here was a lil different I guess, but still it concerns the tolerance and satisfaction of today's generation. Competitive spirit and the desire to excel must be there, but people must learn to keep themselves mentally sound and integral.

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  4. I may sound callous but I feel that causes of suicides are personal emotional problems with the victims. I acknowledge all the parental, peer and societal pressure, yet to take steps to the extreme reveals mental instability. Not that I am blaming the victims, but I will favour councilling and proper attitude formation more than changing the system (which is also required but not in this context).

    Also, I have a feeling that newspaper publication of such suicides and means thereof put ideas into minds of other students about potential reasons and availability of such alternatives than to deal with failure (in whatever sense). Another theory is that exams results are not the only reasons of suicide. Students probably had other reasons to be dissatisfied with his/her life, but shock of failure in exams just provided the spark to cross the line. A comparative study of suicide rate among students of this age group, with other adults or groups may provide more information.

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  5. I noticed your statement about "bachelors in videogaming...". Just today, during discussions about the reservation issue, I wondered if district level badminton payed reasonably well, wouldn't parents encourage a child who enjoyed playing badminton instead of forcing him to study half-baked chemistry lessons. However, some asked what exactly is "reasonable". With some software jobs paying as much as 10 lacs to some freshers, how much less would someone settle for in another job. Forget badminton, why'd someone want to be a chemical engineer when after a BTech from IIT they are offered 3 lacs when their peers from computer science make atleast twice as much on average? Maybe someone would analyse and explain why the huge disparity in salaries of equally able students.

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  6. As always really great post, Rashmi. There is too much pressure on the students to "perform" these days and this is leading to too much stress pushing them to suicide.

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  7. Ok, now, why do you work on Sundays??

    More importantly, can anything in life take importance over family at any point in life??

    Me thinks its our call. Isn't it??

    Btw, Niveditha - I like that name.

    And as usual, loved reading up your blog.

    Me.

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  8. I'm not blaming the system, my point is that why certain children feel pressured and others don't is difficult to say. I feel as parents we don't presure Nivedita and neither does her school - as yet. Still, she does not take to losing or 'not doing well' kindly.

    It's a personality trait - those who believe in astrology may say it's because she is a Leo. As parents we need to recognise this as both a strength and a weakness and help her deal with it.

    The other point is that parents have a limited sphere of influence. There are so many others. The other day Nivedita said, "We are lucky there are no doctors in our family... nahin to unki bhi pitaai ho jaati". Now how does one explain the complex issue of anti-reservation protests to a 6 year old? She says she wants to got to a 'normal' college when she grows up, definitely not become a doctor. You do try to put it all in perspective, but images are powerful. That's life in the world of 24 hour TV.

    As regards excellence not being the same coming first I do think to excel in any field you have to have a desire to do better than everyone else. Maybe you don't 'come first' but you are recognised as someone who is a giant in that field and if nothing you always try to do better than your own last work. I know I always wish to grow as a writer - write 'better' than what I did last year. But I also aspire to be known as a better/ more insightful writer than others. That's not the primary aim but it is a latent desire.

    Radhakrishna, I don't work Sundays ...Right now is recreational use of the computer :) But I do work 2 Saturdays a month because my magazine deadlines necessitate that. In media, working on holidays and weekends and late hours is par for the course. Esp. in daily newspapers and TV. So I am in fact luckier than most!

    I haven't conducted a formal survey but it appears to me that media people have pretty screwed up personal lives... I wonder how many women in media manage to 'balance' their work and family. How many choose to have families at all. Must do some research on that and blog about it separately :)

    However I am beginning to feel that the answer to 'balance' is that one of the two parents must have a comparitively less stressful job. Could be the mom (as is mostly the case), or the dad. More on that, another time.

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  9. Hi Rashmi,

    This is something unconnected with your blog, But the fella over here has taken your name and I thought I shall bring it to your notice. [:x]

    http://thehawkreturns.blogspot.com/2006/05/greetings-once-more.html

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  10. nivedita is a beautiful name...

    and i agree, coming second is not an option.
    i dont fight for minority positions...

    btw.. nice blog... i see you jamming it up ;-)

    cheers

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  11. v sometimes even c professionals succumbing 2 suicide in case of failure.. and most of the times, failure is just lacking or falling short of the set goals...

    I still don't understand why only acads, and just on the basis of test( maybe a game of scrabble) is judged as the form of excellence...

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  12. Objection Melord…..

    There are two faces to it…...Competition and Competitiveness…..

    Given the talent pool we have, competition is depressing. Competition can be seen on two levels, the outer, which is competition in its real sense as we know; Competition between your desires and those with that of your peers, parents and so on.

    The inner competition, competition that is within, competitiveness is a progeny of this. And when you or take for that matter anyone is competitive she / he is left with only two choices. SLOG or USE HOOK OR CROOK. In either of the cases one uses his / her brain or does some calculative thinking that is rational to him / her and more or less gets the thing desired, well in most of the cases.

    Probably those who committed suicides looked at the competition and took their competitiveness for granted.

    Feels really bad to be judgmental over someone’s grief, but that’s life and my mandate.

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  13. hi rashmi
    reading ur blog for quite sometime.as always liked this post too.these days all kids are same..feeling pressures.

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  14. Hey,
    I've designed this image at http://weedwanderer.blogspot.com/ in support of protestors against reservation....please do chk it out and feel free to post it on your blog.

    Thanks,
    KB

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  15. have been reading your blog for some time now(ever since u came to iitb towards the fag end of october i think). While the point u made was interesting, i don't think there's anything wrong with your daughter wanting to come first(infact i would say its a wonderful trait). it just reminded me of something(call it nostalgia)...
    during my school days i always tried to do well(implying come first), but coming to college was like having an emergency landing from the high skies to the rugged ground. If i thought i was good @ something, there were atleast 5 guys who were far better than me in that area...and it made me realize that the only competition i could have is with myself, and i that would only be satisfied when i had put in my best. With regards to the no exams till 5th standard option, i fully agree that isn't a feasible option(or solution), and that some kind of competition is necessary. Further i think if you are truly passionate about something u will want to be the best in that field, and if the subject is a chore the you will just want to do the bare minimum and be done and over with it. May be this explains the 'need to excel'.

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  16. Well...coming first or second or third hardly matters in life...then be it acads,sports,art or anything else....what really matters is ur attitude and ur reaction to the result.Well i think everyone should aim for the best but if it's not the best then ur not rubbish .In our country we find people linking success with academic excellence...even the admission process hardly tests us on things which are far more importantr than just acads.Infact in most of the cases comin first always is a big big curse because such a person is not ready to digest failures....n what we see after exams results is an obvioius reaction to it.The expectation from family,friends.... are far too less than what we expect from ourself....that is where we need to improve.So it's not the school,university...or entrance exam that you have to just crack...but u have to fit best for ur life....try to be first there....
    So to come first enhance ur rate of failures.....that shows that ur doin something different..... :-)

    ReplyDelete

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