Life should be about more than just studying and report cards
Hong Kong is an international city, and having a good education is essential. So students seem to be glued to their books all the time. They are stressed because they want to get high marks, enter a good university, and land a good job. Also, they get very anxious before exams or tests, and if they get low marks, they think it’s a disaster.
But they need to realise that report cards are not everything. They don’t need perfect results to get a job with a high salary. They should take the time to do things that make them happy, like dancing, singing, or learning to design clothes.
But school isn’t the only reason students are miserable. Some parents won’t let their children use phones or computers on school days, because they think the kids should study now and play when they are grown up. But everyone needs time to relax. Yet some parents just won’t accept this. They keep on pushing their children to achieve higher grades.
I think less pressure would make it easier for us to learn. Even students who get 5 stars in all subjects in the DSE say they need time to relax and play a few mindless games.
Grace Yeung, St Paul’s School (Lam Tin)
From the Editor
Thank you for your letter, Grace. It comes at a good time, when the last of the end-of-year exams are in progress, and we at Team YP can almost hear the groans of despair from students.
Weoften let our readers know that it is extremely important to take time to relax.
Playing is a form of learning, the most natural form. When playing, we learn how to interact with others, we enjoy success and taste the bitterness of defeat, and we also become smarter by working away at something until we get it right.
Keeping young people in a box, and only opening the lid once they have graduated, might seem like a good idea. But as humans, we cannot learn about being a team player through a few hours spent at an expensive training camp in summer. It’s a process. We need to “work” at it, too.
We have seen the trend of employers pulling away from the idea of “top grades or nothing” and moving more towards “have some experience”. As gamers are becoming older and bosses themselves, it might very well be that if you have on your résumé that you’re the leader of the top team on an international super-game like the League of Legends, it will show that you are smart, you can think your way out of problems, you are a leader, and you are good at multi-tasking and team work.
Susan, Editor