Students' Stories Over Statistics

Students' Stories Over Statistics

Started
1 September 2020
Petition to
Signatures: 940Next Goal: 1,000
Support now

Why this petition matters

Started by Survival Scholars

We live in a world where we focus too much on Statistics and not on Stories,” Michelle Obama


Almost every year after the SEA or CXC exam results are released, I am asked, "what school have you passed for" or "how many subjects you got?" Yes, somehow I appear to look younger each year. Honestly, when I hear this question I shake my head in disappointment because it shows that some persons are only concerned with the ‘Ending Statistics’ of an entire 5 to 7 year journey rather than being more concerned about ‘The Process’ of the journey.

When we ask these questions, we reduce students to mere test scores (statistics) rather than show them the power of their journey in which they can learn lessons from and form their unique powerful story. Asking these questions increases students' anxiety around exam results as they are fearful of judgment, worrying whether they have met society's standards.  This then causes Students to attach their self-esteem and self-worth to grades which is by no means a true representation of who they truly are. If the results are unfavorable, students' self-esteem reduces and some may feel as though they are a failure.  Instead, we must rephrase the questions posed to students who would have recently become aware of their results to a more positive question like, “What life lessons have you learned in school?”  

After graduating from university, I knew it was coming. What honors did you graduate with? I refrain from responding to limiting questions like this because I know that my university experience was far beyond the type of honors I got. My university experience was filled with many lessons of gaining more self-awareness, understanding more about procrastination and perfectionism, overcoming failure, dealing with friendship struggles, recovering from depression and anxiety and saving myself from almost dropping out of school which all led to the birth of my organization Survival Scholars.

I refuse to allow anyone to reduce my story to a mere statistic that does not reflect my journey. When I realized the power of my story, I transformed from being known as the girl who placed on the CXC merit list, to the girl with a Stellar Story of Resilience. 

We at Survival Scholars along with all the amazing partnering organizations of the Stories over Statistics campaign will like to share with students, parents and everyone in society that we are more than statistics as we are not the school we pass for, we are not our grades, nor are we the honors we graduate with. We are our journey rather than just the end results. Embracing our journey helps us to embrace our self-love, self-worth and our Powerful Story.

As a society, once we are more concerned about students' and each others' journeys and stories, the success secrets and lessons learned from experiences in school can be shared for us to obtain greater success and propel each generation’s learning curve further. Let's focus on Students' School Story rather than the Statistics of exam results.

JOIN US in this Campaign: Share your graduation picture and Describe THREE (3) Life Lessons you have Learned from school that made you who you are today using the hashtags #survivalscholars #schoolstory #storyoverstatistics #lifelessonslearnedinschool #nopressureforsea #nopressureforcxc 

Your signature means a lot to us as we plan to use your signatures to present to our Ministry of Education to advocate for educational reform to solve the challenge at hand.

Thank you for supporting our campaign <3 

Yours Truly, 

Dawsher Charles 

The Resilient Warrior 

Survival Scholars 

Support now
Signatures: 940Next Goal: 1,000
Support now
Share this petition in person or use the QR code for your own material.Download QR Code

Decision-Makers