Faults

Hey everyone, welcome to my blog. I hope you’re having a wonderful day. Today’s post is much more serious than normal; however, I feel as if this topic needs to be addressed.

There are faults in everything and everyone. Most people find it easy to find faults in themselves, and some find it easy to find faults in others. It’s very easy for us to believe that someone (including ourselves) is nowhere near perfect. While this is true, this isn’t a bad thing. Who defines what perfect is? Who decided that we should all try to be ‘perfect’? We need to realise that it’s better to be ourselves than to be society’s idea of perfect. The idea of being perfect limits who we can be and what we can do, and we feel afraid to be individuals in case we don’t fit in.

 However, as some of my friends (especially Emilyrose and Abigail) and I recently realised, the majority of faults we encounter lie in our school. As teenage girls, we are very lucky to be receiving a free, decent-quality education. But there are many faults with schools, particularly with our school.

First of all, our school has so many rules. Although rules are there for a reason and are supposed to be obeyed, they try so hard to reinforce all of these rules, which makes us feel the need to rebel against these rules in the first place. These rules also limit us in who we are, in the way that we can’t wear makeup to school and feel more confident in ourselves. While there should be limits and restrictions to what we can do, they should let us express our personalities too, and trust that we would no longer feel the need to rebel, as there aren’t as many rules.

They are always telling us how we need to be aiming for all A*’s in our GCSE exams. However, not everyone is capable of getting those top grades, and instead of pushing us for those top grades they should encourage us to just do our best. This will make us feel happier in ourselves, and make us feel much happier about our results, instead of making people feel bad that they didn’t get those A* grades that they had been pushed to get for five years.

My school also idolises those who do get those top grades in their GCSEs. Although we should be proud that they did so well, they shouldn’t be idolised, because those girls who put in as much effort but didn’t get grades quite as high should also be mentioned to those younger years. They say how those A* students are the ‘perfect students’ and how we should ‘try to be like them’, but then that makes us feel like we have to be like someone else instead of being ourselves. They are trying to force this image of ‘perfect’ into us, even more than society does, and they think that they can decide what counts as perfect. We have also realised that they don’t idolise those who got C grades, but were predicted low grades such as an E. These students worked so hard just to pass a particular subject, however this work seems to go unnoticed by the majority of the staff, and it is overlooked because they didn’t get grades as high as other students. They need to realise that we put so much work into these exams, and it may not always be reflected by the grades that we get out of it.

Furthermore, they don’t realise that working for these top grades is also the cause of mental illnesses and stress disorders. The more exams we have; the more revision we have to do for these exams. However, all of this revision is the main cause of stress for us teenagers, and on top of this they keep pushing us for these top grades. Instead of pushing us for these grades, they should accept that we put so much work into these exams, and be happy with the grades we get out of them.

On top of this, they use these top grades to publicly advertise the school and appeal to more people. They are constantly referring to how many students got an A-A* grade in their exams, when the main focus should be those girls who made a great deal of progress throughout the last two years at school, and those who either achieved or exceeded their expected exam grade. This would lessen the pressure on us, and make us realise that we don’t need to get those top exam grades to exceed in life and be offered a range of opportunities. They only want us to get these top grades to make them look better as a school, when most of the students (and some of the staff) feel that it’s not even a school anymore, due to all of this and the rules.
In addition, most of the teachers don’t really care about our health and wellbeing. They care more about our grades and making it look like they have taught us well, even though many of their students over time will suffer from a stress or anxiety disorder, due to the pressure they put on us. Instead of trying to combat this, they give us more revision and homework, to try and improve our grades for their class. I think it’s time they realised that our health is more important than grades. They also make us feel as if we should be spending every spare minute revising for these exams. We shouldn’t be stopped from interacting with our friends because we should be doing revision instead. While these grades will decide part of our lives, having good social skills is also really valuable in life and will be needed, no matter what job you have.

This all results to us finding more faults in ourselves. We find fault that we aren’t getting those top grades constantly, and that’s okay, as we need to learn to accept what we get, as everything happens for a reason. Maybe we weren’t supposed to achieve that A* in that one subject, and that’s fine. They also make us feel much more insecure, due to the fact we can’t wear makeup to school. This then makes us want to wear more makeup, as most of us aren’t happy with the way we look naturally. Again, this is something we need to learn to accept sooner or later, or we will never be happy with ourselves. Finally, we are worrying about being ‘perfect’ in more than one way. We worry about looking ‘perfect’ when we go out and worry about being accepted by modern society, and we also worry about being that ‘perfect’ student that everyone aspires to be like. This stops us from being ourselves, as we are constantly trying to be like others, both in school and out of school. So, my friends and I believe that we should stop finding faults in ourselves, as there are many more faults in schools, that all help to shape who we are.

Much love, Cara xxx