Unlearning Learned Helplessness by Maria

Unlearning Learned Helplessness by Maria - March 2017 Scholarship Essay

Fellow students,teachers, and administration, thank you for giving me the platform to speak on an issue that's come to my attention. Students nowadays suffer from the anxiety to achieve academic excellence, which they perceive as obtaining straight A's. While this goal is ambitious and rewarding, sometimes it is easier said than done due to a variety of factors. The most increasingly present factor in the lives of modern day students is learned helplessness.
Learned helplessness is defined as a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. It is thought to be one of the underlying causes of depression and stress. Math class is a predominant example for this phenomenon. Students who find themselves in remedial or regular math classes are placed there with the idea that they will be able to refine their skills to eventually reach a higher math class. Unfortunately, at times that is not the case. When kids who are accustomed to believing they are failures in math are placed in a classroom with other kids who hold this belief the result is a collective lack of effort and care. Not because they are unintelligent but because they no longer feel the aspiration to learn material that they have previously failed at conquering. That is learned helplessness. It is fortified by the common ideology that lower math classes are a joke, so in return they treat it like a joke.
Believe it or not, teachers who too exhibit learned helplessness further reinforce their own students. A teacher with students who are no longer motivated experiences a form of learned helplessness because they also lose the motivation to teach those who do not want to be taught. When the teacher's performance suffers, the student's ambition further plummets. It is basically a never ending cycle that continues year after year making one dread coming to school. It is not necessarily the students, teachers or the school systems fault. If blame were to be assigned it would fall on society. Society for encouraging the unhealthy obsession with being the perfect student. A student body is intensely diverse in regards to learning styles and pace so to place the same standards on all students is extremely worrisome. It causes those who do the best they possibly can to feel like they are less than the student next to them. They learn to accept their fate and neglect their potential.
Occasionally, the verdict is that not everyone is made for school. An idea that is gradually being accepted within our society. For those who are meant for school but need a boost in inspiration there are ways to curtail learned helplessness. Ways such as effort feedback in which an educator gives positive feedback to the student when they accomplish something to promote more practice. Even when a student is wrong feedback can be given in a supportive matter. Also, a shift in focus towards the students that noticeably do not participate in class helps to get them involved. A student can set a personal not generic goal for to make them feel as if they are their only competition thus promoting self improvement. Not for the benefit of anyone but themselves.
Regardless of future plans in regards to professional or technical careers, each job helps their community prosper. You are the future of this nation, all students possess their own unique set of skills that make them standout and be who they really are. Skills that enable someone to find their true calling. The only missing element is acceptance and encouragement. To unlearn helplessness one must relearn helpfulness.