We all go to school with the mindset of making good grades so that we can end up with good degrees and certificates that can get us good jobs, which, in turn, earn us good money.
Unfortunately, people who work so hard to get these grades (“A” students) usually end up working for people who barely came close (“C” students).
Why?
The biggest reason for such problems is our mentality and education system, which always encourages people to top in studies but never give them financial education, which is the most important thing to grow in life.
As a result of this, people pass exams, topping their class. Meanwhile, they end up working for those who were considered failures and average as per the education system.
Let’s take a moment to analyze what education was meant to be when it was created. Some early thinkers and educational philosophers like John Dewey, George Counts, and the like penned down their thoughts on the purpose of schooling and although they all had their different perspectives, none of them thought that going to school was supposed to fetch us jobs.
According to Dewey, the primary purpose of education and schooling is not so much to prepare students to live a useful life but to teach them how to live pragmatically and immediately in their current environment while Counts believed the purpose of the school was less about preparing individuals to live independently and more about preparing individuals to live as members of society.
However, when industries started to emerge and big organizations needed workers, schools became a reliable field source for scholars.
Now, because there were more than enough students to pick from, these students were made to take different tests and exams that will eventually qualify them for the job.
The world, however, keeps changing with one modern innovation or the other. Sadly, our school systems haven’t changed much and are still structured in the same way, with teachers still giving the same old lectures and teaching techniques they’ve been using for donkey years.
The emergence of the internet has taken over the world, and learning is made easy. The world is moving toward an entrepreneurial and innovation-driven economy. It is projected that by 2020, over one billion people will be working from their homes.
In the future of work, fewer people will work for one company as generalists and instead will work for multiple companies as specialists.
The implication of this is that the world no longer needs stiff workers, the world is in need of creatives and innovators. Unfortunately, most “A” students still belong to the former category, while the “C” students, to the latter.
Now that we have an idea of what the “A” students look like different from the “C” students, we can examine why “A” students find themselves working for “C” students.
In this blog post, we’ll be sharing with you 5 reasons why A students work for C students.
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“A” students don’t question the validity of our academic system
Albert Einstein says, “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
“A” students judge every other student by the same old method of our educational system without understanding every individual’s different talents and skills. They believe strongly in the present academic approach alone.
“C” students, on the other hand, believe that there are different ways of learning and our academic system is just one of such.
Thus, “C” students are open to learning from different channels. “C” students aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo.
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“A” students are scared of failure
If there is one thing “A” students held on to while growing up, it will be that failure is a bad thing. Hence, the need to always top their class.
A good number of us were trained not to fail in life and as a matter of fact, if we failed in school, we would have to repeat that same class for another year to prove our intelligence while the rest of our classmates who passed/did better than us were promoted to the next class. Humiliating, right?
As a result of this mentality which is the case of most “A” students, they grow up working hard enough to earn for themselves good grades, which in turn leads to good certificates and good jobs (which provide them with just enough money to survive) respectively.
They play it safe all the time, never stepping out of their comfort zone because they are scared of failure
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“A” students spend time trying to please their superiors
“A” students spend enormous amounts of energy trying to impress their superiors because they do not want to be perceived as failures, especially by their bosses.
They see their boss as their guide to success. Hence, they depend on them and feel the need to always please them, unlike “C” who takes pleasure in thinking and creating their paths to success rather than depending on people.
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“A” students are perfectionists
“C” students are not perfectionists like “A” students. Hence, they focus on getting something done, getting results, and moving forward.
They know that waiting to perfect every situation will only lead to procrastination. So, they jump right in, make mistakes and choose to learn from their mistakes.
This is because they understand Reid Hoffman’s saying, “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”
“A” students, on the other hand, believe everything has to be perfect to attain success. Hence, they keep procrastinating and waiting for the supposed “perfect moment or product.”
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“A” students do not know how to seek help or build a team
“A” students try to do everything by themselves instead of leveraging on the strength of other people around them to compensate for their weaknesses.
They are afraid to admit that they don’t know anything because again; they do not want to be perceived as failures.
“C” students, unlike “A” students, build a team around a bunch of talented individuals.
Let’s consider Henry Ford, whose intelligence was questioned by a lawyer. Ford responded by saying, “Let me remind you that I have a row of electric push-buttons on my desk, and by pushing the right button, I can summon to my aid men who can answer any question I desire to ask concerning the business to which I am devoting most of my efforts.
Now, will you kindly tell me why I should clutter up my mind with general knowledge for the purpose of being able to answer questions when I have men around me who can supply any knowledge I require?”
You see, like Ford, “C” students are not afraid to admit that they do not know it all.
However, irrespective of the class of student we belong to (“A” or “C’), what is important for us to understand is that success is not dependent on our grades.
Discover what you want to do with your life, do some research, equip yourself and discipline yourself to pursue that line of career.
Thank you.