March 26, 2023
episode description
Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like without academic validation. What kinds of things would make me feel proud? What would motivate me to work hard? In this episode ponder the implications of the murky water that encompasses academic validation.
Links:
Blog post: Overcoming the Need for Academic Validation
Tik Toks Mentioned: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRb4GQk3/, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRb4EDLe/
transcript
School has been really stressful lately. And really it didn't have to be this stressful.
If only I would actually, you know, do my work, then I wouldn't be nearly as stressed as I am right now. But the problem is that I don't enjoy doing my work in the way that I used to.
I mean, obviously it's not always fun to do your homework, but for me, school is something that I usually enjoy.
So now that I'm not enjoying it anymore, it's much harder to do my work because I know what it's like to like enjoy doing my work. Instead of doing my work, I'm literally doing everything else... Like anything else other than doing work.
And my new venture has been to play the Sims, which has been kind of fun. I mean I started playing it because the sims, like the desktop sims, is free now. So I was like, I'm definitely downloading that.
I've been kind of thinking about live streaming it, but I honestly don't even know how to do that. So maybe I will, maybe not.
We'll see. Only time will tell, but I've been playing the Sims and I started playing as a form of escapism. Like I was like, yeah, I don't like my real life right now anyway, so let me go play a game where I can pretend to have a different life.
And I made a Sim that's name is my middle name, so basically it's me and I gave her my dream job of being a writer, and I gave her my— well, I'm working on giving her my dream house. And she's gardening and she's having a great time.
At least that's what I thought was gonna happen.
But instead my Sim is anxious, and I'm like, how can you be anxious? We can't both be anxious.
I'm playing this game so I can be less anxious. And now you're over here anxious too. What kind of mess is that?
Not only is she like anxious, like she has a fear of failure, and I'm like, wait a minute, this is getting a little too realistic. Like how did they know that? How did they know that?
I feel some type of way about potentially not being successful in life and I honestly had to stop playing for a little bit because it was getting a little too real.
So let me tell you exactly what my Sim has been saying. Cuz honestly, it's really crazy. So she has a fear of failure and the game said at this point she thought she would be used to failing everything, but every day is a new surprise and disappointment.
And I was like, dang, not that actually being me. And then she also has looming anxiety, which that hits a little too close to home. Thanks very much. And the game was like that anxious feeling looms over her as she discovers something new about herself. A fear that wasn't there before growing inside ready to overcome her into paralysis at any moment.
Like what? Why? That was— I was like, no thank you. Why did you tell me that? Why did you put my feelings into words that I hadn't even put into words yet? I was like, this is a little— this simulation is a little too realistic. And then the final one, which is literally like the crux of my dealing with rejection episode is when the game says everything does not seem to be going her way at all lately. It has just been bad news after bad news. People keep saying you never know until you try, but never talk about how it feels after trying something new and it not working out. She can't take another disappointment. It's terrifying and way too painful to try again.
I was like, what? Come on now. We can't both be feeling like this.
You're supposed to be happy. You have everything that I want. I've made it so that you have everything that I want. Dream career, dream man, dream kids, dream house, dream garden. And you're still feeling the same feelings that I'm feeling right now? That might actually be kind of deep. Like, what is that saying?
I don't know. But I was kind of like, I need to take a break from this game. Like I need to go do something else because that was also too real and I did not like that.
Anyway, that was, that's just something that's been on my mind lately and I felt like I needed to get that off my chest.
Today I want to talk about the feeling of when you need academic validation to function in life. Cause I feel like this was me for a lot of my life. And I feel like it's kind of because of when I was in elementary school, the school that I went to had this system where, It had like the GT kids and then like the on-grade-level kids and obviously like the below-grade-level kids.
And I was an on-grade-level kid in elementary school, I was just like fine. Nothing's wrong with that. But I was the only one of all of my friends who was not in GT. And so that made me feel like, okay, so I'm not in GT then I must be stupid. And so I think that is like the very beginning of that craving, that desire, that dependency on needing academic validation in my daily life.
And when I got to middle school, I started getting better and better at school for some reason. I honestly don't know why I got better at school, but anyway, I was getting better at school and I was getting pushed up into these classes that were like honors or like GT a little bit more. And then I was like, oh, am I actually smart?
I shout to myself, let me keep this going. And then in high school I did more GT classes and more AP classes, and I just needed those A's on my report card to feel like I was valuable. Maybe, I don't know.
But something I did realize is that when I was first like entering into these more rigorous, more advanced classes, I would go into them feeling like, oh my God, everyone's so smart.
I don't know how I'm gonna keep up. Like maybe I should just stay in my on-grade-level class. Like it's kind of scary actually. And when I got there, it was like everybody was just kind of average. I was like, hold up. I thought you guys were smart. Like you guys are not as smart as I thought you would be.
So I don't know, that was kind of like weird. That was kind of like interesting to have that realization where I held these people up in these GT classes to such a high standard that I thought I could never reach that standard, that I thought they had something that I didn't. That when I actually got there, I was kind of like disappointed honestly, that they weren't like everything that I had built them up to be in my head.
But anyway, before I keep talking let's talk about what academic validation really is. Academic validation can be described as, "A student relying on positive feedback in academic environments to feel recognized and appreciated, which can be debilitating and lead to an unhealthy obsession."
And I found this blog that I was talking about overcoming the need for academic validation from milliganstampede.com, which I'll link in the podcast description. And the first line of the blog was like something that I could really relate to and I'm sure a lot of other people can relate to because it talks about how a lot of students tie their academic performance to the projected success that they think they'll have in life.
So the blog says, "I must confessed that when I earned my first B in high school, it was an earth shattering moment. It's a sign I thought, I'm not gonna succeed in life. Who was I ever to think I was?"
A lot of times when I get bad grades, or not necessarily bad, like anything that's not an A. My brain honestly kind of like labels that as a bad grade, which is not a good mindset to have, but I anytime I don't get an A, I feel like so horrible, and I think this is because I was like a late bloomer gifted kid, you know?
Like I wasn't gifted throughout my entire academic career. Like I started becoming gifted. I don't know, maybe I was gifted the whole time, but I honestly did think I was stupid and I feel like because I thought I was stupid, I thought that like I wasn't good enough. I just like limited myself with my own mindset of thinking like, oh, I'm not in GT then I must be stupid kind of thinking, which you know, I learned about in college as an education major, the fixed mindset versus a growth mindset.
Whereas like a fixed mindset is like when you believe that you're born with a set abilities and you have those abilities throughout your entire life. Like what you, what you're born with is what you got. You just gotta work with what you got throughout your whole life.
Versus a growth mindset is more like you have these set of skills, these abilities maybe that you're born with, but you have the power to decide to work hard to develop these skills that you were born with. So like even if you're bad at math now, that doesn't mean you're always gonna be bad at math. That's the growth mindset versus a fixed mindset.
It's like, oh, I'm bad at math and I'll never be good at it. That's just not my strength. So I would say I had a fixed mindset when I was younger. And then as I got older, I guess I had a growth mindset. Like I honestly now believe that I can do anything I set my mind to. Lately that feeling has been a little bit... Taking some hits with a lot of rejections.
But I also have to remember that I'm putting myself out there a lot more than I have in the past. Like I'm trying new things, I'm applying to more things. So obviously I'm gonna get more rejections than I had in the past cause I've been applying to more things. But you don't really think about that when you get the rejection.
It just feels like sucky and you're like, Ugh, I got rejected. I'm the worst. Like I must be like so bad. That's the feelings you have.
Sorry if I'm talking kind of fast today. I drank coffee this morning to get work done, like to get my schoolwork done before my shift today. And I wouldn't say that I've got nothing done, like I have got some things done, which is, you know, some things done is always better than, no things done.
But I definitely have not got the things done that I thought I was gonna get done. It's kind of starting to freak me out and stress me out. My heart's eating pretty fast right now. I'm like, ah, I need to get my work done. I don't wanna do it, kind of thing. Also, I kind of have a little bit of a sore throat, which is freaking me out.
I cannot afford to get sick because I only have three days off the whole semester. Like I can only take three days off from my unpaid student teaching internship. If I take more than three days off, I have to go back to the elementary school to fulfill those hours after graduation which would be the worst.
That would suck. And I don't wanna do that. I literally just took my first day off, like not too long ago because I was feeling really stressed. I needed a break because like, I don't really have a weekend. During the weekend I just go to work. So it's like I get to sleep in a little bit, but like, that's about it.
I spend most of my time doing homework to catch up. And then after I go to work for 4 hours, the day is pretty much over and then the weekend is over before I know it, and then it's time for me to go back to the school. So I had to take that day off. But now I'm kind of stressed because now I only have two days left and really I only have one day left cause I'm planning to take another day off to go on a field trip to a broadcasting company with my university.
So then I really only have one day off. So if I do get sick, I've only got one day, like that's it. I gotta power through the rest, which is not ideal. But I needed that day off and I don't regret it. I thought I was gonna get some work done on that day off, but I actually did not. I just fell asleep, which is good.
It's good to give my body the rest it needs, but now I'm like literally vibrating and sweating with anxiety and stress. It's fine. Everything is fine.
Anyway, I got distracted once again. But I wanted to talk about a really important moment in my academic career, I guess you could call it. So in eighth grade, that was the first time that I ever got placed in GT class.
I had been in like maybe honors and stuff, which is like not quite GT, but like just a little bit more accelerated than on-grade-level.
So this was a science class I was taking and I started in the on-grade-level version and my teacher, I guess saw potential in me and then switched me over to the GT class, which was a really important moment in my life for me because it was like, that was the moment that I started to believe that maybe I was actually like smart. Like maybe I was actually good at school. It's really sad that I felt like the need to have that label of being in a GT class before I could consider myself as someone who is smart.
You don't need to be in GT to be considered smart. But I felt like I did at the time because honestly, the structure that those schools operated in that county kind of communicated that like the teachers value the GT students more. The students felt like, you know, it gave them a certain status and even the parents were like also playing into this as well.
So it wasn't like, I just thought that GT is smarter. There's all these other factors coming into play that is making you feel like you need to get in that class. You need to have that status to be smart. And honestly, I see the same thing continuing now as an education major and it really does make me sad because I know what it's like to feel like you're not smart cause you're not in GT and it doesn't end like even at the college level. When I was a tour guide, the first thing parents asked was, how does my kid get into the honors college?
The honors college is great and stuff, but you don't need to be in the honors college to have a successful college experience. But that label of being in the honors college, like parents wanted that and students wanted that, and even I wanted that, like when I didn't get into the honors college for my dream school, I was like, oh, I'm not good enough.
When I didn't get into the honors college for my school, like I was like, wow, I guess I'm like not that smart. Not smart enough to get into that. But I mean, don't get me wrong. I was grateful to even get into the school, but I like had gotten into the honors colleges for other colleges that I had applied to and I was like, why didn't I get into the honors college for that one?
Which as I like, did college, a lot of people like dropped out of the honors college cause it was like extra work that they didn't really want. As I was in college I felt that the honors college wasn't that big of a deal, and I'm kind of grateful for the program that I did get into. It's not the honors program, but it's like another program that's more geared towards students who are involved in community service or passionate about community service.
And I think that that program was better for me honestly, then honors would've been. But yeah, when I was younger, I felt like GT was really important and I see that now in my students who are like, How can I get into GT or whatever. And even if you tell them like, you know, you don't have to be in GT to be considered smart.
They're like, yeah, yeah. Kind of thing. Like they still want that label anyway. And I don't blame them because everything is telling them— everyone is telling them that they need that label to be successful in life or that label equates to success.
I honestly think they should change the name. Like, I don't know, it feels kinda like a cop out.
You wanna reward the students who are performing well in school, but it feels like that label of gifted rewards the students that are doing well, but also belittles those who are not doing as well by saying that they're not gifted. But I don't know. I have conflicting feelings that I feel like every student deserves to be celebrated for their strengths, but I also like don't think that students should get like, you know, participation awards because it's like that's not the real world.
Like in the real world you're not gonna get a reward just for being average. So, I don't know. I feel kind of weird about it, not too sure, but in middle school we had something different than elementary school. Middle school is when the introduction of the honor roll started. And I, myself am a very goal oriented person.
At the first middle school that I went to there was like the Silver Honor roll students and the Gold honor roll students. Silver was like if you got like maybe one or two B's and rest were A's. And the Gold was like if you got all A's or maybe one B was allowed, I don't remember. But I had gotten silver in sixth and seventh grade mostly.
I really, really, really, really wanted gold, and I think I might have gotten it like once or twice, but I worked really hard to get it. Once I did achieve that Gold Honor roll status, I felt like this immense pressure to maintain that status of being like a Gold Honor roll student, like a straight A student.
And it makes me wonder if like celebration of an achievement can have negative consequences due to like the overemphasis that you put on celebrating that achievement. And I feel like I feel the echoes of that in my current life where if I do like a good job on something or like get straight A's or whatever, I am celebrated and like gushed over and all of that, which I mean is deserved. I worked hard for those things.
But then I like fear losing that celebration, those positive— I don't know, affirmations, thoughts, words, whatever from others if I don't achieve that same thing or better next time. So it's, I don't know, what does that mean? I don't know what it means, but it is a real pressure that I put on myself as a student and I'm kind of in like a weird point in my life, Cuz like as I told you earlier, I'm not enjoying doing my work in the same way that I used to.
I've become very apathetic about my work. I really do not care about it. Because I know that it really doesn't matter. Like, not that it doesn't matter, but like a lot of the work for education majors is like busy work.
It's not like hard, but it's still a lot. You need to dedicate a lot of time to get it done correctly, and there's like these long articles and it's so annoying. Like you're not learning anything new. It's just like the same information repeated over and over and over again.
So I don't really care about school in the same way that I did before. I used to be so stressed to be like, oh my God, I gotta start this, like weeks in advance. So I don't only care about it.
And honestly, the pandemic has taught me the value of enjoying your life and not letting your academic obligations rule your life or dictate how you spend your time.
And it's kind of hard for me to go back to the discipline that I had, like back when my academic performance or well back when my academic responsibilities did rule my life because I have this attitude where it's like, well, it doesn't matter. You know what I mean? Or it's not that important. And last semester I definitely did pay for that mindset a little bit.
I got— technically I got straight A's, but I did get one A minus. And the reason why I care about the A minus is because it made my GPA go down. So at my school, if you get an A minus, it counts as like a 3.7 and not a 4.0. So it does negatively impact your GPA if you've gotten A's or A pluses for a majority of your college career.
And I have. I worked really hard after first semester of college to make sure that I was getting straight A's every semester. And this class last semester, like one of them gave me an A minus, and really did I learn anything in that class?
Absolutely not. I learned nothing and I didn't care about it. I just literally came for the attendance, but I don't really know why I was given an A minus.
Like she didn't really give me any feedback on the final paper that like I got a B on, which led me to get the A minus. But lemme tell you, when I read that on my transcript, like the A minus was there, I literally like wanted to cry. Like it ruined my day for real. Which is like so ridiculous to say.
Cause it's like well, A minus is a good grade. But for me, if it's not an A plus, it's not good enough. And I know that it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, like I'll still get my diploma regardless of if it's an A plus or an A minus. But losing that streak that I worked so hard for, especially in a class that I couldn't give two shits about, was really upsetting to me.
Because I've taken way harder classes and gotten an A plus. So it was like, who does this woman think she is to gimme an A minus, like, your class didn't even matter, which sounds so conceited and bratty to say, but it like, I don't know, like your class sucks. You gave me an A minus. Like are you serious right now?
It's not that serious. It was never that serious. I feel like professors who like are the worst, like their class was the worst, always takes themselves the most seriously. And then the professors who are like amazing are like, yeah, here's A pluses for everyone. Not that you have to give all students A pluses to be an amazing professor, but like for the classes I really, truly enjoyed, I felt like those professors were the most lenient and I feel like I came like away from that experience of taking their class as a person who was more intellectual, who has grown as a student.
I also feel like when people label me as smart, like they have throughout my entire life. It kind of taught me to seek value and attach my value to my grades in school. Which, you know, everyone kind of inadvertently contributed to when they called me like smart. Like, oh, you're such a smart girl, or whatever.
Or Sidney's smart. You know what I mean? I just like, it wasn't really that I was smart— I mean, I guess I'm smart, but I didn't get good grades because I was smart. I got good grades because I worked really, really hard. Like I put in the time and the effort to make sure that I was getting my good grades, cuz I didn't want it to come to the end of the year or the semester or whatever and there'd be a question about whether or not I'm gonna be able to pass the class or whether or not my grade's gonna be an A at the end of the semester. I tried my best and I worked as hard as I could because there's no excuse for doing otherwise.
At least that was in mindset I had back when I cared about my schoolwork.
So first of all, when they called me smart in that like kind of way it felt like. They were making the work that I put in to get that grade seem like less than it actually was because all they saw was the results of my hard work. They didn't actually see me crying on the floor because of some small inconsequential thing that upset me.
But yeah, I feel like after a while of me getting into these advanced classes and doing well, I was kind of labeled as the smart, quiet black girl who read books all the time, which I mean, that's not a bad thing to be labeled as. It's not a bad reputation to have. But it gave me kind of the like stress to feel the need to maintain that reputation.
And here's the thing, it was rarely, explicitly said that I had that reputation, but it was kind of like implied. Or like when I got a good grade, after a while people would be like, yeah, of course you got a good grade or whatever. But it's not that I just got a good grade, like I studied for that good grade.
I sometimes wonder to myself, like, will I still feel motivated once I stop getting like graded for things? I kind of like wonder what motivation will look like in my life after I graduate college. And sometimes I consider going into grad school just for like the continued academic validation.
And I guess that's a question of like intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. Like am I motivated internally or do I need external factors like money or grades or positive affirmations to be motivated. Which I don't know. I feel like I'm a pretty self-motivated person, but I don't really know how I would operate in a world without those extrinsic factors, like good grades or whatever.
But I guess soon I'll find out since I'm graduating or maybe not. Cause I'm kind of considering going to grad school, not this fall, but next year. Because I really like the idea of becoming a creative writing professor. Even at like the community college level, but I don't know if I'm cut out for like graduate school and I am also broke.
So I would need to go to a fully funded program for that to work out. All of that's so stressful. I don't know. But I also wanted to talk about this thing, this like trend that I've seen on TikTok lately where people are talking about. The gifted and talented to burnt out adult pipeline. Like when you're celebrated for your intelligence as a young person or as a child and then when you become adult, you're like so burnt out from trying to maintain that expectation of being a little genius that you as an adult, don't have the energy. Your capacity to achieve things at the same rate or level that you had been when you were younger. Or people's expectations of you are so high that when you do make achievements, it's like not seen as anything out of the ordinary or like celebrate it.
It's kind of like downplayed in a way. So the first TikTok talks about, well, honestly, it doesn't really talk about it, but it kind of portrays this like, loss of identity that you feel when you go from being someone that everyone consider gifted and talented to like, kind of like a disappointment, like if you're not achieving at the same rate, you feel like disappointed in yourself and you're so hyper aware of everyone else's disappointment in you, and kind of that feeling of being lost in that sudden loss of identity.
And the second TikTok that I wanna talk about today talks about like the stages of going from being like perceived as smart to like fizzling out. You go from everyone saying, you're so smart, you're so smart, you're so smart to like everyone being like, Ooh, what happened to her?
Like, ooh, she had once potential. And the stages are really interesting. Uh, cause I feel like I kind of did go through this a little bit. Not all the way, but where you feel like in the beginning everything is like easy for you, you getting A's, you barely have to put an effort. And then you feel like, okay, everybody's so excited.
I'm getting all these A's, so now you feel like this, this intense desire to maintain them and supersede them. And you kind of feel like a perfectionist where you're like, everything needs to be an A, otherwise it's not good enough. And then you transition to impatience. Like you just want that success already.
You don't wanna put in all that hard work. You just feel like, like, I'm smart, I should get the success. Or like, not even like that, more like success is the expectation. And so you just wanna see the results and don't have enough patience to like do all the backend work that you need to do to get those results.
And then once you face like the consequences of your own impatience, you kind of like lose control. And the reality of the bad grades or the slippage that might have happened from your impatience sets in and makes you feel like you no longer have control over the trajectory of your life, which sounds so dramatic to say, but it's so true.
Like if those A's start turning into B's and C's, it literally feels like the world is ending sometimes. And then after you like lose control and the panic from those bad grades or whatever goes away, it's replaced with this kind of like emptiness. And feeling like you don't really care because it's out of your control anyway, which I feel like is like the burnout where you like don't know what to do to fix it.
I don't know. I thought it was kinda kind of interesting, kind of true. I mean, at the end of those stages, that was in that TikTok, they talked about revenge, like getting back onto their daily grind or whatever. But I feel like not everybody has like that recovered. I feel like I'm so lucky that the losing control part of this stuff, whatever these stages is happening to me in my last semester of college.
Because if I was having the burnout I'm having right now earlier in college, like I don't know if I would graduate on time. But I also know that my problems are not just cause of like the pressure I put on myself to succeed. It's also because something that I was passionate about in the past— I'm no longer passionate about it and I'm dealing with the ramifications of that realization.
So yeah, super fun, super great, right?
And anyway, even though I said that I don't care about school right now, not like I don't care about school, I don't care about my classes beyond graduating, and like beyond their ability to put a diploma in my hand. But I mean, like I do care about school and learning and stuff, but I'm just not taking any classes that make me passionate about it in the way that I used to be.
I still like, even though I know all that, I still don't know who I would be without good grades. Like I don't know what would be left without that part of my identity, which is really sad to kind of say. But it's so true. Like I— who is Sidney without the straight A's, who is Sidney without the gpa, the high gpa?
I don't know. But I guess soon I'll have to find out. Like if I don't go to grad school, grades will not be there to boost my self-esteem in the way that they have been a constant presence in my life for the past, what, 16 years or something like that. And that's honestly kind of really scary to realize that soon I will not have that familiar feeling, that familiar concept to rely on in the conception of my identity of who I am as a person.
But honestly, I'm kind of excited just a little bit. I'm excited to mainly experience Christmas next year without finals season. And Thanksgiving and Halloween, like without midterms and finals. That's super exciting to me because I feel like that holiday season has been tainted for the past, like four years with stress of my grades and with the stress of wondering what my grades are gonna be, when they're gonna come out and how well I did on my finals.
So 2023 is gonna be exciting as far as the holiday season, but I also worry that I'll feel kinda lost, like. I don't know. I won't know if I'm like doing a good job without that validation from grades, but I'm a little nervous, a little excited, a little bit of everything to find out.
Anyway, I think I'm gonna end this episode there.
As always, make sure to follow the podcast on Instagram @jumblepodcast and also make sure to leave a review. Let me know what you're thinking about the podcast so far.
And I'm honestly looking for a new book to read. So if you have any recommendations, feel free to leave a comment on any of my posts.
I really wanna read a book by a black author. Cause I feel like I don't read enough of those. Or, I mean, not even just a black author, just an author who is not white. I wanna read more of those books, so if you have any recommendations, leave them in my dms on Instagram.
But as always, I hope that tomorrow is better than today. I hope that tomorrow you get a chance to go sit outside and listen to the birds. To get some vitamin D because it can be so easy to just lock yourself in your room until you get whatever you need to get done done. But you know, you only get to experience nature so much in life.
We never know how much time we have in the world, so go enjoy being outside for as long as you can. That's my attitude anyway. I try to go outside more often and now that I have a dog, I go outside more and more. Before I didn't know how much fun it could be to be outside until him, to be honest.
But anyway, go outside, have some fun. Go frolic in the grass or something.