Ra­jiv Jal­im

For any stu­dent to dis­re­gard the in­for­mal so­cial rules of a school en­vi­ron­ment is to bold faced­ly ask for trou­ble. None of us in our right mind will vol­un­tar­i­ly step out of our niche and risk os­tracism. Af­ter all, there lies in wait a bar­rage of in­sults and taunts that would leave the lit­tle dig­ni­ty and re­spect we may have, in sham­bles. In our minds, we've all un­of­fi­cial­ly placed each oth­er in­to var­i­ous cliques; a group bound by cer­tain so­cial rules and norms, vi­o­la­tion of which leads to ex­com­mu­ni­ca­tion. This black and white cat­e­gori­sa­tion has left lit­tle wig­gle room, which presents an awk­ward quandary to that in­di­vid­ual con­sid­er­ing break­ing the rules. But when push does come to shove, do they break them? We're all tal­ent­ed and that's no se­cret. But un­less our tal­ent is deemed so­cial­ly cool, we must sup­press it. We must not speak of it or make the mis­take of show­ing it off lest we in­vite the so­cial ju­rors to cast judge­ment. As a mat­ter of fact, im­age is every­thing. Why shouldn't the school's best male tenor be forced in­to kick­ing a ball right?

Wrong. Why should he?

This most dis­turb­ing and un­for­tu­nate sce­nario is alive and all too well among the so­cial dy­nam­ics of a stu­dent body. The raw tal­ent that every­one is gift­ed will ei­ther be judged wor­thy or worth­less by a set of rules un­of­fi­cial­ly writ­ten to main­tain a ridicu­lous hi­er­ar­chy. The peer pres­sure ex­ert­ed over­whelms most stu­dents in­to ig­nor­ing their nat­ur­al abil­i­ty, to tap the skill giv­en to them by some high­er pow­er. Con­se­quent­ly, most of them do not re­alise their tal­ent un­til much lat­er, usu­al­ly af­ter the sec­ondary school days, when they end up re­gret­ting the missed op­por­tu­ni­ties to show­case them­selves as young and up­com­ing stars. Peer pres­sure can de­bil­i­tate a per­son's mo­ti­va­tion and cause them to steer away from their true de­sires all in the name of fit­ting in. We're used to hear­ing about peer pres­sure in­to so­cial ills such as ex­ces­sive smok­ing and drink­ing. But it leaves one to won­der, how deep does peer pres­sure re­al­ly af­fect a stu­dent?

Through the de­vel­op­ing stages of sec­ondary school, the de­sire to fit in trumps al­most every oth­er pri­or­i­ty. Un­de­ni­ably, most stu­dents fo­cus on their aca­d­e­m­ic as­pect, to keep their head above wa­ter and make it through the years with sat­is­fac­to­ry grades. How­ev­er, the yearn­ing to be ac­cept­ed in­to a clique se­vere­ly ef­fects on how a stu­dent car­ries about him­self around his peers. It of­ten af­fects how he speaks, what he speaks about and his opin­ions on that top­ic. Sim­i­lar­ly, it af­fects the non-ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tions with­in and be­tween var­i­ous groups. In some cas­es, the per­son is so­cialised in­to be­liev­ing this is how he must por­tray him­self and as a re­sult, he cre­ates an im­age; a fa?ade that will hide his 'faults' and show­case on­ly the ac­cept­able at­ti­tudes. So what hap­pens when a tal­ent op­pos­es this ap­pear­ance? Sad­ly, this oc­curs in many stu­dents. The clash of an abil­i­ty with an im­age, and if the abil­i­ty does not sup­port the im­age, then it is cov­ered from any peer­ing eyes.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, there are stu­dents who prac­tice and ma­ture their tal­ents out­side the school­ing con­text. Whether it is parental pres­sure or parental sup­port, the thrust is giv­en to nur­ture and rear the abil­i­ty de­spite what friends and class­mates may think. This num­ber, how­ev­er, does not equate to the max­i­mum num­ber of stu­dents with sim­mer­ing tal­ents wait­ing for the chance to boil over. It is im­per­a­tive that ner­vous stu­dents are giv­en the right sup­port to ex­press them­selves via pos­i­tive out­lets. More im­por­tant­ly, this sup­port should come from with­in the school­ing sys­tem to il­lus­trate to the stu­dent body that there's noth­ing wrong with dis­play­ing a pos­i­tive tal­ent, while break­ing the so­cial rules of seg­re­ga­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion. A tal­ent is not to be wast­ed. A tal­ent is not to be sup­pressed nor is tal­ent to be chas­tised. It's a gift, part of who we are. There­fore, no­body has a right to tell us that we can­not. Take the risk and ex­press your­self. Break the so­cial rules and show your po­ten­tial. The po­ten­tial to make ex­cel­lent use of your time and en­er­gy and in the end, there can be no re­grets. Af­ter all, it's bet­ter to have tried and failed, than to have failed to try.