These days, we're no longer unique individuals with complex sets of characteristics and talents. No, we have become confined to numbers. Whether it's our clothes size or our ACT score or our income, a number defines us. We're looked down upon if our pant size gets too high. But heaven forbid our GPA falls below a 4.0. When did we become just numbers? We are so much more complex than that.
I'm not "all about that bass."
This song came out a while ago, yet I still hear it playing in stores and on the radio, occasionally. The problem with this song is that while it claims to promote healthy body image by praising curves and "booty," it degrades those who lack those aforementioned traits. It refers to size 0 girls as "skinny chicks," and I don't know about you, but that doesn't promote healthy body image to me at all. Let's not build one type of body up by tearing another down. The problem with confining beauty to a size or number is that beauty isn't that simple. There's no formula to it. Beauty comes in all sorts of sizes and shapes and colors. It can't be condensed to a number.
I'm not defined by my test scores.
Not long ago, I was one of about 1500 in a very competitive high school. I was one of about a couple hundred competing for scholarships and colleges. Though academic-driven schools do produce high-caliber students, there is a big cost. I remember believing I was stupid when my GPA wasn't a 4.999 or something ridiculous like that. I remember being embarrassed about my ACT score because it wasn't in the 30's. Praising test scores and GPA's and shunning the other accomplishments makes for a large amount of students believing that they are dumb and will never amount to anything. Not only does labeling students by their standardized test scores create a feeling of stupidity, but it also promotes cheating and unethical means of getting that 4.0 or that 36 or whatever other number they need. Students will copy answers on homework because they're more concerned about the grade than actually learning the content. Kids will buy and sell Adderall just to make a grade or a deadline. So, even though we're producing high-caliber students...at what cost are we doing so? As a future teacher, I strongly believe that there are much more important things to teach our kids than how to be a cookie cutter, 4.0 star child. Honesty, integrity, well-roundedness, etc. should be just as important as their IQ's.
My success and income are not interdependent.
Growing up, if you asked me what successful people looked like, I'd probably have pointed to the people in the nice suits, walking out of the nice cars, parked outside of their nice mansions. They probably would have been wearing sunglasses more expensive than my entire wardrobe and they were probably not smiling. Today, when I tell people I am going to school to become a teacher, I get a lot of skepticism. They say I won't make a lot. They ask me if I'm sure. Some even tell me I'm better off in a different field. This always bewildered me. Yes, income isn't a bad factor to consider when looking into what field you'd like to go into, but I would so much rather be happy, doing what I love to do and living in a small home than living in a mansion with a swimming pool and hot tub but doing something I hate. When did success become determined by our incomes or what's in our wallets? By promoting that kind of success, we force our kids into fields they won't like (or might not even be good at), all in the hopes of them being successful. But again, at what cost?
I'm not a parent, but I know that when I am, I want my children to have more than money. I want them to not be defined by their GPA or their SAT/ACT scores. I don't want them to be confined to their class placement or their pant size or their bra size. There's more to be learned. There's more to be taught. We are more complex than we are allowing ourselves to be. Rather than restricting and labeling people to/as numbers, we should be praising our complexity and our unique differences. We should be teaching integrity, selflessness, empathy, self-awareness, compassion, etc. We are much too wonderfully made to be condemned to be just another number.
