YARMOUTH — In reflecting on the recent graduation season, I think there are some underlying truths about high school that often go disregarded. One of them is this: Throughout high school, there’s a constant and growing pressure for students to see ourselves not through the merits of who we are as a person, but through our grades, through our test scores and through our perceived level of “success.” It’s a desire that present-day culture largely forces us to succumb to, and it’s definitely not the fault of students.
Like many high schoolers, I think I hopped on this roller-coaster of resume-building as early as freshman year, because it’s so enticing to achieve something tangible like a great summer job or getting into your choice of college. More pervasively, though, it caused me anxiety, self-doubt, self-consciousness, extreme insecurity and countless sleepless nights of worrying. Frankly, I’ve come to believe that chasing a preconceived idea of “success” is unsatisfying and destined for disappointment.
It actually seems odd that we culturally place so much emphasis on a certain notion of achievement, when in reality, nobody’s going to remember it. Really, is anyone going to recall whether they were part of three or four high school clubs, or whether they earned a 93 or a 94 on a physics quiz (or, in my case, usually much lower)? I think the resounding answer is no, these transient statistics probably won’t cross students’ minds 20 years from now.
Instead, what we just might remember are the moments of stupid mistakes – in other words, the moments where we actually grew. So to more accurately represent who I am, I’ve created a new type of resume. I call it an “Oops resume,” or, in Latin, “Curriculum Vitae Oops.” Here are a few highlights.
• February 2012: Talked trash to a competitor twice my size in a hockey game. The next thing I knew I was lying on the ice with a concussion and a very strong feeling of regret. Oops.
• August 2014: Took a wrong turn in a junior varsity cross country race and led the entire field of 200 runners the wrong way. Oops.
• April 2016: Gave a speech while running for student body president and had my voice crack so loudly in front of the school that I didn’t live it down until months later. Oops.
• February-March 2017: Wore my hair in a man bun. Nothing against folks out there with a man bun today, but anyone who saw me during that period would definitely agree it was a big mistake! Oops.
• January 2018: Crashed into a friend’s car backing out of the school parking lot while listening to music so loud I didn’t realize the accident had occurred until the police called me. Oops.
I share these “oops” instances not just to let you laugh at me (although I hope they made you smile), but to underscore my point: All of these moments, and more that I admittedly don’t yet have the courage to share, shaped me to a greater extent than any positive validation has. For example, when I had that first voice crack in front of the school – I say “first” because many more followed in subsequent speeches – I wanted to shrink away into non-existence. Then, for the first time, I realized the power of self-deprecation, and took things a little less seriously.
Think for a second about your most memorable accomplishments. Then about your most memorable mistakes. Which did you learn more from? I’d be willing to wager more growth came from that embarrassing memory you’d like to forget. So why shy away from failure? I think that genuine growth through failing, not conventional “success,” should be celebrated. In other words, as the Will Smith quote on the wall next to my bed reads, “Fail fast, fail forward, and fail often.”
As young people trained like soldiers in school through standardized tests and constant evaluations to conform to societal expectations, we must have the resolve to step outside the normal lines, to revel in the unknown and to fall flat on our faces.
And to truly help students develop, our educational system should reflect genuine growth habits and lend more room for exploration and failure. Only then can we really live up to the promise that schools should prepare students for fulfilling lives in a changing world and not just turn creative minds into robots. It’s time we learn from our mistakes, say “oops,” and change our attitude toward failing – both individually and systemically.
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