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I’m Opting Out of Ambition
Bye bye
My 10-year-old daughter’s bedroom is dotted with awards. She has several academic excellence awards, a social justice award, and a smattering of other “official” accolades.
Framing them and hanging them on her wall wasn’t my idea — it was hers. She’s very proud of her awards.
I’m proud, too, but I’m also wary. For years and years, I attended schools and worked at jobs that preached the importance of teamwork and collective responsibility, but rewarded individual achievement — often in ways that elevated a select few and made the rest of us feel kind of crappy.
I still remember my middle school Spanish teacher, who used to write all our test scores on the whiteboard in a long narrow column from highest to lowest. She didn’t attach names to the scores, but you could still clearly see if you were doing worse than everyone else, doing ok, or doing pretty good. My score was always the one at the top.
I loved being at the top.
Like my daughter, I loved my awards too. I collected them with enthusiasm. A teacher once commented on my report card: “Sometimes I feel that Kerala is out to conquer the material, not just learn it.” I don’t think she meant the comment as a compliment, but I took it as such. For me, school was a conquest. I wanted to be the best, and…
