To open up that envelope and not find the letters or numbers that you were hoping for can feel like the most public and fearful let down for our young people.
Thinking about your family (“how did you do?”) The wider family (“how did he do?”) and the social circle (“do you know how he did?”) can feel like you are in the WhatsApp amphitheatre of defeat.
We talk a lot to young people about resilience (or accuse them of a lack of it) but what can require more resilience than the feeling of not having met your own expectations, academically, competitively and personally?
We can tell our young people that it doesn’t matter, but that feels rather cruel after telling them for so long that it did, and of course it matters, but the question is – how much? I often tell the young people I work with, who feel that they are academically middling, that I could sit all the students in their year in order of academic achievement, then 10 years later when looking at their salaries, they would be in a completely different order, if I then looked at happiness, we would be talking about some serious musical chairs. Because society and the economy rewards other qualities over “smarts”.
The truth will only be delayed for those who achieve all they wish for to adjust to, and it’s this;
‘your academic accolades will only get you so far. It’s your gumption, pluck and opportunism which are the qualities that will ultimately help you carve a path, and your empathy, positivity and gratitude which are most likely to help you craft a life of happiness.’
So it’s time to let young people uncover an untruth – one which they must dispose of with other myths of their childhood – your education was about character and skill more than it was ever about grades – and that is entirely yours to own, regardless of what that piece of paper says.