AIBU to think the wording in this high school transition book isn't great?

[Whatswiththesmalltalk]

Dd recieved a transition booklet to look through, I'm assuming most kids transitioning to high school recieved these. The part that bothered me in particular was the are you an average or an awesome kid? It listed attributes of average kids such as not putting your hand up. I get the idea behind it but I don't understand the need for labelling kids who feel uneasy raising their hand or lacking in confidence as average. Surely that will only do the opposite of what was intended. I've attatched an image.

It's very American in its determination that we should all conform to one definition of awesome successful.

Yuk! (and who the fuck do they think they are anyway?)

I was bullied at school for being clever, so I never put my hand up. So that list for me essentially said "be average" which is inferred to be bad, or to be bullied and be unhappy.

The current trend for putting people in boxes is so regressive. How has it come to this?

That a child who is quiet and shy but with a natural aptitude for certain subjects is being labelled average at age 10/11?

It's so young FFS.

And the misuse of the concept of average has seriously fucked me off. The people who wrote this don't understand maths. Kids in primary school learn averages in maths. And this says, fuck that! Words don't mean anything. Be awesome! Like the current sterotype of a successful person!

I have worked with actuaries and IT people. They earn a shit ton of money, the ones I know. And guess what! Many of them did not put their hands up in class .

Seriously do all kids need to put their hands up & take risks? Not everyone is the same & workplaces generally need a mix of personalities.

I was probably a kid awesome but I'm a lazy fecker so not sure what happened there! 😆

Also most people will grow up to be average (statistically) so that's now a bad thing?

Yes. 'kid awesome' have single handedly decided to change the definition of average.

Causing a brain melt for children and adults who enjoy maths. People who may well excel in areas like maths, physics, engineering, statistics, economics etc

You know those people who, as per the first pic, are often bored in class and don't 'try hard' because they're very clever, and OMG might prefer books over sports.

Have they run this shit in silicon valley?

@Whatswiththesmalltalk

It is in a sense former babe and i agree completely with kids trying hard but being shy to speak up and not putting you hand up isnt necessarily not trying hard. It's just the personality trait of some children.

or a disability.

I've come back to this thread because the more I think about it the more it has annoyed me. Many posters have made some excellent points about how upsetting this messaging could be for anxious or shy children, children who are not NT, children with a disability - at a time when many, many children will already be feeling anxious about transition.

To me it is the equivalent of yelling "well, just run faster!" to a child that always comes last at sports day. Schools cannot simply spout a few out-of-context growth mindset ideas at kids and consider it a job well done. FFS. We should be calling schools out on this kind of shit.

Out of interest, who is it published by? I can only see the 'Big' in the logo. I guess the average/awesome idea is lifted from this book here: www.amazon.co.uk/You-Are-Awesome-Confidence-Bestseller/dp/1526361159?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

What is bad about thinking other people are talented? Adults do that all the time. If you need someone to fit a new bathroom, you ask a plumber, who is talented in fitting bathrooms. If you need a new heart, you ask a heart surgeon. You wouldn’t ask one to do the other’s job, because they both have talents, and neither of those take away your talent for selling houses.

And from a teacher, here’s s better list of how to be “awesome”:

Try your best
Be kind

If you can do both of those most of the time, you are fine.

I hate all that crap. I never put my hand up, sat at the back and passed notes. I now have an Oxbridge degree. Oh and I'm a smug twat so yeah, average

That the kid average is black and the kid awesome is white also feels off

This is wrong on so many levels. I would honestly put in a complaint if that came home to me.

1 - I teach, in a big state secondary school. I don’t recognise that description of an average child; if it is average for this school, the school is doing something wrong!
2 - The connotations of the pictures (books = average, sport = awesome; black boy = average, white girl = awesome?!) are appalling
3 - relying on hands up is totally outdated pedagogy

The child in me is cringing. Can you not just teach me some stuff and stop trying to define my personality? Fuck off!

Urgh.
What everyone else said. When I was transitioning to high school, I would have identified with most of the things on the average list - another stick to beat myself with as a horribly shy, underconfident, bullied 12 year old. Guess what? I was also intelligent and hard working, and am now a perfectly normal, happy and successful adult.

Also surprised I had to scroll all the way to p3 of these comments before someone pointed out the first thing that jumped out to me as 'off' about this page: yes, if my (brown, mixed race) DS took a glance at this then quite obviously he would most instantly identify himself with 'kid average' before even reading a word...

That the kid average is black and the kid awesome is white also feels off

Just spotted that, I didn't notice until I expanded my screen. And there was me thinking they'd tried to make it inclusive by making a girl 'kid awesome'.

I agree with everyone else it is a terrible leaflet.

I'm an introvert on those Myers-Briggs things and some the people who got extrovert were all sympathetic to me
(Got it done at uni)

DD (teen) looking over my shoulder - "hahhh mumsnet - what are their knickers in a twist over today..."- "it's an airy fairy wish list made up by an idiot mum"

"I do half the stuff on each list so I am "awesomely average"!!"

Followed by me : "Should such an awesomely average young lady be eating left over Colin the Caterpillar cake for breakfast?"

She is a shy, never put a hand up person, she was always told to, we were always told she needed to. We took the info and filed in the hmmm ignore but keep an eye on things box. She's doing fine.

My DD (adult now), was a mixture of both of those lists. She worked hard but rarely put her hand up. She was (still is) scared of looking foolish but never gave up etc. How would a child like her be termed? Awesomely average? Averagely awesome? The idea that a child is either one or the other is laughable. Whoever came up with that booklet has no idea about children and should be held to account.

I also spent the whole of my school life being told that I should speak up more in class. Nobody ever told me how to overcome the crippling shyness that prevented me putting my hand up though.

This was in the 80s. Have things changed at all in schools? By which I mean, do any schools help the kids who are too shy to talk in public, or are they still just telling them what they should be doing without telling them how?

@WokeEwok

That the kid average is black and the kid awesome is white also feels off

This needs highlighting and pointing out to the school. I wonder what their BAME makeup is? This would be the best way to attack it with the school. It would have been much better to have the same child in each photo showing that if you try something different you can go from 'average' to 'awesome'.

I hadn't noticed that 'kid average' was black. I'd like to think that was because I was too focused on the woeful text to pay attention to the photographs, however I wonder if subconsciously it was reinforcing a stereotype of black boys being underachievers at school. Whatever, that needs pointing out to them. There's so much wrong with the whole thing, it just needs to be pulped.

I was often scared to speak in class because when I did I was mocked as ‘posh’ and a ‘boffin’. Nice to know that made me average despite my excellent exam results.

It's horrible and misguided in many ways. Apart from anything else you can be the sort of person who doesn't put their hand up (for whatever reason) and still have a growth mindset and be successful. The 'awesome' traits they list are fine but why not just list those as an encouragement and ditch the negative comparisons?
Is this from a UK school by the way?

Everything ShinyFootball said.

Dreadful. (Chimes with the current trend for describing everything positive as 'amazing'. What an exhausting world where everything has tio be 'awesome' and 'amazing' all the time or it's deemed not good enough. And as for 'average' as effectively an insult - )

My DD is in year 9. Shes very academically bright and on a "more able student" programme at school....but every parents evening I have been to since she started school, has mentioned how shy she is, and how she never puts her hand up in class. At the last parents eve I think every one of 7 teachers said it.
She is incredibly shy, I was too at that age, and would still hate to speak in front of 30 people.
From my experience when I've helped in school or clubs, a lot of the kids who put their hand up dont know the answer but just like an audience. It's just a different type of personality - it doesn't make them more awesome than the person who knows the answer but hates attention.