[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]Imagine being told your whole life that you have one good quality: you’re smart. And you believed it. In middle school, you never studied, you were part of the top 10 percent, you were the best of the best.

Until you reached that one class.

The class you hit the ground failing. Your average got worse and worse with each test that rolled by and you had to learn how to study in a matter of two days.

You feel the disappointment of every person who looked in admiration of your grades. You feel you are worthless to every kid who branded you “that one smart kid.” You feel like you can’t ask for help because you’re supposedly the smartest. But most of all, you feel like a failure.

I call this ailment: smart-kid-gone-stupid.

It’s the downward spiral of desolation that “smart” kids go through when they get a class they don’t excel in. It’s not necessarily that they go stupid, but it’s that they feel this way.

For me, that class was pre-AP geometry. I failed the very first test and it didn’t get better from there. By the end of the first nine weeks I had 67 in the class; I could feel that very number burned into the back of my eyelids; everything I did was not good enough.

My teacher blatantly told me to drop the class, so I did. I was put into a regular geometry class, thinking it was the end. Problem was, I couldn’t bring myself to tell a soul.

My parents were supportive, yeah, but I couldn’t bear the judgement of my friends. I thought they’d turn me inside out because I had dropped to regular, a class that was so inferior to them they couldn’t fathom why I struggled in pre-AP.

So I did the ridiculous, I pretended I was in Pre-AP the rest of the year.

I pretended I was something I wasn’t just for their approval, and it turned out they didn’t even care.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][testimonial_slider][testimonial title=”Testimonial” id=”1420483302-1-68″ name=”Hannah Arnold ” quote=”“When over-the-top-smart kids get a low grade on something in an advanced class, it’s detrimental to their self esteem. Of course, they want a challenge and that’s usually why they took the class, but a bad grade is still a bad grade. No matter how many times the AP multiplier is explained to them, they can’t get the thought out of their head that they are a failure.“”] Click the edit button to add your testimonial. [/testimonial][/testimonial_slider][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]I had smart-kid gone-stupid. I spent every waking second worrying about my grades and classes just because I was scared someone wouldn’t think of me as smart anymore.

That’s the problem with today’s education system: we’re injected with this idea that grades are the only thing that matters, instead of just focusing on learning. I doubt I can recall anything about mitosis because I only studied it to get an A, not to enrich my mind.

Take a step back and work on you, we live in a society so concerned with the future that we can’t take a look at ourselves in the present. And in the end, no one is going to care that you ranked 72 in your class. You can’t gloat about that once you’re out of high school.

Do something for yourself now, join a club because it interests you, not because it’ll look good on your transcript. Build a personality for yourself before you’re just a hollow shell by the time you reach college.

They say these are the years that matter, but I promise you, they’re not. The years that matter are the years that you make count. Where you do something for the good of others instead of yourself.

And in the end: You’re not stupid: you’re a smart kid having a hard time.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]