By Dimo Wa Moraswi Sekele
Fail, fear and a shade of shame
Drawing from my own experience I think it is only fair that I admit to a great extend that, passing at school was not influenced by a desire to succeed, but a great chunk of fear of failing. I related more to failing than passing and in my mind I perceived a fail as the ultimate worst thing than can ever happen to any human being.
As I sat there in my corner and observed amongst other social media trends the deliberate mass shaming of pupils who failed/could not progress to the other grade and the maintained attempt to instigate fear in them days before they could fetch their end of the year progress reports, I recalled my own experience and remembered how the pressure would mount and anxiety coupled with sleeplessness would torment me.
Was I really scared of failing? I can mention a handful of examples that prove I was not scared of failing, maybe I was scared of something close to failing, something that happens as a consequence of failing because there are countless of times I failed my class test and assignments and it just didn’t drive me over the edge like a progress report would have, even worse the thought of it coming with a fail. I think the key was “progress”, maybe because everyone would know if you progressed or not. It does not make sense though, why would people who know that you are repeating a grade torment you like that?
Let me introduce you to your greatest fear… His name is SHAME. This is not even your fear but your families fear too, the thought of repeating a grade is not as bad as the thought of having people know you are repeating. But that is ‘baby’ fear; now factor in the evil giggles and lunch time gossips and social media shaming and having your family look at you like you worthless. I have met a lot of characters who bounced from school to school in an attempt to hide from this shame. This is the reason grade 12 results have become so correlated with suicide notes that Government removed names from the newspapers and replaced them with examination numbers.
But don’t miss the point, shame has become the barrel that people can fire without feeling bad or connecting their actions to loss of life. The latest happenings on my timeline did not only prove how reckless we can get with other peoples lives and just how we can laugh about it and pretend it was funny with no infringement on other people’s lively hood.
I wish I could offer a real cure/solution to this problem, but sadly the only thing I can offer right now is my opinion. So to every adult in their 20’s who saw it fit to laugh at kids for failing please take this moment to interrogate the kind of adult you are, or better yet the parent you are or would be.
It is wise to practice caution when dealing with real life situations, the world is too serious for us to continue laughing behind our screens while victims of our actions are counted as stats. From where I am standing it is fair to say, adults are an endangered species, as soon as they switch on their screens and start typing any sense of responsibility escape them, Facebook and twitter might have driven the message but you typed it, you hyped the trend and your actions are the reason parents bury their own kids every year.
It is not late to grow up, you can be better…
[ABTM id=6648]
