When word got out among her friends, instead of congratulatory responses, they began to mock her. "Look at Myra, she thinks she's so smart." "She's a smarty pants!" She thinks she's better than the rest of us!"
Turning even uglier, she was approached by a couple of Cholas (tough girls), who threatened "If you show up to the assembly, we are going to kick your ass, home girl." Myra shuddered at the thought. She went home, shut herself in her room and did not utter a word of it to her mom.
On the day of the assembly, Myra was late getting out of bed. "Come on Mija", prodded her mom, "you're late for school!" "I don't feel well today, Mom I think I'm getting the flu", Myra shouted. "Ok Mija", stay in bed and take care of yourself, I'm late for work. I'll see you tonight." The mother drove off to work.
It would be some time later when the school contacted Myra's mother about the unexplained absence on the day of the assembly, and the award was tucked inside the envelope.
The story shook but did not surprise me. Peer pressure to fail, to be stupid, to be mediocre, to be a pendejo is rampant among our kids today. "All I want from life is a C", is the debilitating mentality. The student who studies, the one who gets good grades, who succeeds in school is sometimes bullied and ridiculed by his/her peers.
Students gather in groups when they receive their graded assignments. "You got an F? Me too!! They cheer on excitedly. The few with the A or B paper aalmost dreads announcing it to others. "An A?? What did you do, kiss the teacher's ass!?"
The greater tragedy is that their parents, sometimes their teachers, even the greater society languishes in Mediocrity. The term derives from the Latin word "mediocris", to be in "a middle state." We don't want to stand out. To be seen as different from our neighbors. To be smarter, to be intelligent is a life sentence to be separate.
We need only to look at the long history of great people, thinkers, philosophers, artists to witness the the many tragic and lonely lives they lived. There is a price tag for success.
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2 comments:
This pretty much sums up my school years. In 5th grade I was inducted into "GATE," the program for smart kids and was relentlessly teased. I tried to not be a "school girl," in order to fit in and played dumb for many years. It wasn't until my junior year of high school that I pulled my head out of the sand and realized that I didn't want to be stupid like everyone else. And I'm happy to say that I graduated from Cal. :)
V yep, I hear you loud and clear. I'm so glad to hear you wised up! Thanks for taking the time to comment. Don't get much of these!
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