When Ambition Becomes Absurd: The Hidden Dangers of Over-Pushing High School Students
There’s something slightly deranged happening in modern schooling, wrapped in marketing gloss and sold as “excellence.” Somewhere between targets, dashboards and corporate cheerleading, academic ambition mutated into academic absurdity. The Distinction Arms Race Schools across the country now chase distinctions like commodities. Targets are set with all the humanity of a production quota, as if teenagers are microprocessors being upgraded, not actual people with limits. The latest craze? Forced extra classes. Mandatory extension programs. And the pièce de résistance: Saturday school. Every Saturday. From February to prelims. Imagine being 17 and realising your social life has been replaced by a timetable designed by a Soviet-era engineer. All in the name of “excellence”. What Happens in Real Classrooms It looks impressive on a PowerPoint slide - arrows shooting up, averages climbing. But on the ground? Students buckle. Pressure doesn’t motivate everyone; sometimes it simply crus...