…then tell your child: It's okay, there are still many choices in this life!
Because an exam is not enough to judge whether a child is good or bad.
Because an exam is just… an exam, which means there will always be other exams, other assessment scales that are more suitable for you.
3 years ago, I told my best friend's child that, when his mother burst into tears on the phone because she felt disappointed and frustrated because her child failed the 10th grade exam. I - a family friend, also considered an involuntary psychologist who is relatively trusted by the children, took responsibility for talking to him. The room was dark, the curtains were closed, the 15-year-old child curled up on the bed in silence. I told my child that I knew this truth was too hard to accept, because if he studied poorly, it would be fine, but here, dozens of certificates of merit, big and small, from each school year still hanging on the wall, showed the opposite. A child who studied well, his parents took care of him every little bit, his teachers and friends loved him, so why did he fail the 10th grade exam?
Because your child will take the exam with nearly 40,000 other students, while the quota for public schools in the whole province is only over 31,000; that means about 77.5% of children will successfully pass the exam, while the remaining 22.5% - 9,000 children can be considered failures! In fact, many of those 9,000 children have good or excellent academic performance, but with the "huge" number of candidates, the standard scores of public high schools also tend to increase. On the other hand, the gate is narrower when all schools do not accept the second choice, so your child may have enough points to get into school B, school C but lack the points to get into school A according to the first choice.
Failing an exam makes you feel like you are the worst, most unsuccessful person in the world. You may blame yourself for not trying hard enough, not putting in enough effort, not studying hard enough; that you are really unfilial for disappointing your parents; that you are ashamed of your teachers and friends for having been known as a good student for years but now failing miserably. I sat with that child in the small room all afternoon, silently with him, listening more than advising, guiding more than imposing, finding solutions more than analyzing the causes. I said, now that it has happened, in your opinion, we have option B, option C, option D… You see, you have only lost one option, but there are 1,001 other options waiting for you to consider!
Finally, that child chose to study at a vocational school, learning both vocational skills and culture! You know, now, after 3 years, just yesterday, his mother called me to boast: T. has just been accepted as an intern at Hyundai, next September he will go to Korea, to work at the head office. There, he will continue to study and work, if the internship results meet the requirements, he will be officially accepted by the company as an engineer!
I am writing this because I just received an email from it:
“Teacher, thank you for your sympathy 3 years ago. At that time, I hated myself so much, but now I am secretly grateful for failing. The experience from failure only taught me how to stand up more firmly. When I look back far away, I realize that an exam at the age of 15, 18 is nothing, because when we step out into the big world, even every day we have to face so many exams to surpass ourselves!”
Finally, I will cite here famous people who failed miserably but still continued to rise strongly until they succeeded: Michael Jordan – the so-called “king” of basketball, after being cut from his high school basketball team, he went home locked himself in his room and cried, but he was determined to practice again and the results are as we see now; Albert Einstein – the great scientist, who was honored as “the smartest man of the 20th century” was unable to speak until he was nearly 4 years old and his teacher told him that he would “never make much money”; Oprah Winfrey – the queen of American television who was demoted from her job as a broadcaster because she was… “not fit for television”…
So, now you know what to say if your child fails an exam: It's okay, there are still many choices in life!
Article: Phuoc Anh
Illustration: Document
