Attitude before Academics

By: Jea Armas

Nowadays, It’s alarming how students tend to prioritize academics over their
physical and mental health. We drank countless teas and coffees in order to
surpass those sleepless nights we have been spending to further on study a lesson
or to review subjects and quizzes that are due the next days. Today, it has always
been the battle between good grades and well-being.

An accident was reported last August 3, 2017 about a young 12-year-old

Filipina who committed suicide from Singapore because she could not take the
pressure of maintaining good grades in school. Reports stated that the
unidentified girl is a Filipinas whose family moves to Singapore and later on
became Singaporean citizens. Same as through four years ago when two college
students in Batangas shot themselves dead after receiving failing grades in
separate incidents Friday afternoon of April 8, 2013.

These incidents regarding suicides because of failing grades or compulsion

and stress from school works have been widely increasing for the past decades
and the reasons behind vary from each of it. One root of the tragedy are those
parents who are so obsessed with pressuring their sons and daughters in their
studies to achieve and maintain high grades as well as awards and medals of honor
for the purpose of boasting their children to others, not really caring about their
child’s happiness and welfare. In addition, most of these parents lack the talent
and intelligence to achieve their own goals so they live their dreams of academic
glory upon their children.

Another cause of the student’s concealed depression are those demanding

teachers who put so much load to their learner’s shoulders not thinking their
students have limits too, and not a robotic machine who never gets tired of a
myriad of school works and activities. These burdensome teachers do not
anticipate the cargo of difficulty they are handing to their students which can
result to anxiety as well as shrinking of the mind.

Another issue is that we youngsters put so much effort in our grades in

academics, but in return we lose respect and we tend to forget how educated we
are because of our ambitious thought of having high marks at school will definitely
give us a fine career in the future.

All of us possess an amount of competitiveness in our spirit. The passion is

innate in each one of us as we all have different drives in order to win or reach our
goals. But sometimes, being too competitive and putting all the pressure to
ourselves might also lead to depression when we fail and even excessive eagerness
on our way to the top, we just become so desperate to attain something. Yes we
gained knowledge, but we lost our attitude.

We, future generations are the successors of this young planet as well as the
hope of our tomorrow. Dreams of fate would not be achieved without us, our
talents, and our God-given abilities and strengths. We should cherish and bring
importance to ourselves especially of our health. Yes, having good grades is key,
but not in the sense of putting our well-being at risk. Being a responsible and
disciplined student means managing our time and balancing our Emotional
Quotient (EQ) and Intelligence Quotient (IQ) well. We must invest more in our
attitude than in academics, putting goodness and morality above grades.