The System Failed Us

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with a lady friend about our school and how excited she would feel when she finally graduates from it (she's currently in her second year) and somewhere alone the line, the conversation had shifted from graduation talks, to examination talks.

So she started to tell me about how before she came to school, she was a bookworm, someone who never joked with he studies and would always bring out time to read and understand whatever it was she was taught in school, but then ever since her first year in this school, she no longer cares about her book because the school doesn't care about it.

_{photo by Aaron Burden}

Listening to her say all of that wasn't a surprise to me because I could relate to everything she had said. You see, back then during my freshman year, I had taken that secondary school mentality with me and had thought that what I read and wrote would determine what my final result would be.

I remember I used to have a friend who made it his responsibility to make sure he read every single day after school. He was so brilliant that I knew I had to be friends with him and would go to his house every night for night reading during the exam period, because we all thought that the only way we could pass and have good results was by doing it the old fashion way, the right way.

But after that first semester examination and we all saw what was really in play, we knew the school didn't care about the old fashion way, all they cared about was the new way, the money way. And what was crazy was that we weren't even given a choice to do it the right way, we were required to either make the necessary payments to pass the course, or get ready to fail.

By the time we got to our year two and were now fully in tune with the way the system worked, we knew there was nothing we could do about it other than to play ball, to join them in their game.

And sadly, that my friend got so discouraged that he stopped his usual reading routine and instead got himself a job because he needed the extra money to be able to avoid the many bills these lecturers were throwing at us.

So tell me, what do you do when the one thing that is suppose to encourage you to try to be better at something, is the one discouraging you at it...how do cope then?