Tag: Coop Bank Visa Card

My 14-year-old niece is the firstborn in my brother’s family. She feels immense pressure to excel in academics, due to an overly-achieving family.

Both parents are pursuing doctorates in their respective fields.

Her father is a physician, and her mother has built a solid reputation in law and governance. Both teach part-time at public universities.

She’s called Naomi, and has just received her 2022 KCPE results. She missed the elusive ‘400 mark’ by 45 points.

Man, she is devastated. I’d understand why.

My brother is stern, strict and pushes for excellence in everyone around him. Lots of times at the cost of personal freedom and friendship.

Burdened with a busy schedule, Naomi’s parents would miss most of her school’s parent-engagement events.

I’d often be the parent at Naomi’s top-rated private boarding school. It did not come cheap. Often, her father would remind her of ‘How expensive that school is’ and, ‘Set a good example to your brother’.

The younger brother is in 6th grade – and cared little if she scored A’s or E’s. 

Poor Naomi performed well throughout, but this kind of pressure robbed her of her dream marks at her final exams.

At this point, she was not overly anxious of the kind of high school she’d attend, but struggling under an overwhelming feeling of failing her successful parents.

Worse, her cousin in a derelict, poorly-staffed and equipped day school had beaten her by 20 marks – at a fraction of the cost! 

Naomi had a shocker question for me: How do I apologise to my parents for failing my exams? 

I stuttered a little, and thought of three possible answers:

• You Come First

Please congratulate yourself. You are mature enough to know that a personal failure may affect other people. Like, not attaining a grade may hurt your parents. That’s something.

Apologise to yourself, too – for messing up your peace of mind.

It’s all about you, not other people. This is a personal milestone, the first – and the success of shortcomings do not overly affect other people. Just their expectations of you.

At this point, you come first. Are you happy with the results? Sad or disappointed? The lessons lie in what you feel about the results – not the actual results. If you gave your best, walk tall and be proud.

If not, there will be new opportunities to make amends. 

• Failing is Part of The Journey

It’s ok to fail. We don’t always succeed. Sometime we fail also.

But we should never lose our hope. Failing a test doesn’t mean that you are an idiot and know nothing or haven’t studied anything.

You studied but you still failed in the test only means that your mind couldn’t grab the things easily like the other people. Just a little more hard work and focus than before turns it around.

Failing at something gives you some kind of boost to do much better than before. But some people don’t think like that. We should have positive thoughts regarding things. Then only, we can live this life happily.

You will be fine. 

• Parent’s Love Can Be Stern-Faced 

Your parents are the only people in the entire world who actually want you to be better than they are. They love you unconditionally, no matter how strict they are.

They are concerned about you, and perhaps upset and could mistake a low grade with irresponsibility. Go talk to them. 

Face this situation with pride, it’s your life, you are responsible for it. Even if you struggle because of the results or because of your mistakes, it’s still you who will suffer, so ultimately the words from your parents should not affect you.

Say: “I failed, not because I didn’t do enough, or because, what I did wasn’t enough. It’s my life’s failure on one front, I will come back stronger and better.”

Show them some commitment to improve, and be better.

Now, fellow parents – listen up.

These situations are not solved with one-off pep talks. Students need constant assurance by deeds and overall commitment to their wellbeing.

One sure way, is timely payment of school fees and upkeep for them besides demanding job schedules.

Co-op Bank avails a convenient way of paying school fees directly into the school’s account through MCo-op Cash, M-Pesa PayBill 400222, or a Co-op Kwa Jirani Agent near you.

There is a ‘Word of the Day’ feature on my phone’s Dictionary App that pops up a random English word.

Today, the algorithm gods said: “Dyscalculiais“. Is that even English?

It’s a medical term for a learning disorder that affects a person’s ability to do math. It affects brain areas responsible for math- and number-related skills and understanding.

I was floored by this revelation, but also a tad skeptic. 

A memory from a particular math lesson in my school days came up. An episode that thawed my very complicated relationship with math from pure torture and terrible grades to a likeable disposition with good grades.

I had never before attained ‘Average’ in math.

My high school had a progress evaluation system. Basically, exams and more exams: Opener, Mid and the Final Exams. The Openers’ served the biggest challenge.

A nasty jolt to slap us out of the holiday moods. This episode happened in Form Two, after the Easter holiday. 

We started with the dreaded math paper. It’s a tough fifty-question paper rounding off to a hundred marks. I breeze through it with trepidation, like a pirate condemned to walk off the plank at sea.

I knew I would flunk it, and I did. What with much of the holiday reading novels and watching TV?

The results were out by the evening preps. As was custom with our math teacher, quite empathetic and insanely patient – he’d read the top and the lowest score, but not mention the names. Morale, I think.

Someone had punched in an incredible 98%, and the lowest came in at a partly 19%.

I didn’t know who led but I knew I the 19% was mine. But, for a minute there, we giggled in the back rows speculating on which idiot had probably scored 19%.

My desk mate had managed a 76%, and said he felt dumb. Really? Dumb with a 76%? What adjective would I use to describe my 19%?

I was pretty miserable.

Did I mention that our math teacher also doubled as our class teacher? He had absolute powers, first among them – to shuffle us around the class.

Who sat where, and with whom?

He announced that the top would be paired with the lowest scorer. Before I could say Abracadabra, I had moved from the back to the front row. It was the least favorite position. If you dozed off in the back row, most teachers would chuck a piece of chalk at you.

The front row? That’s within slapping distance!

Barely do we settle in, than the teacher unleashes the next shocker.

Henceforth, each pair would tackle math problems on the board. The top grade, would lead the lowest in a step-by-step tackle. What?

In the history of my schooling, I had never volunteered to work out a math problem on the board.

I had a problem, but, hey – a pirate has to walk the plank, right?

What followed was an agonizing few weeks, each a degree worse than the other.

I realized that I was ‘dragging’ my partner. She was kind, but I was fast wearing down her patience. Eventually, we worked out a system.

Each night, we’d use half an hour of preps going over the following day’s assigned math problems.

I started getting correct answers on the board. The kids would clap, for everyone – but the claps were louder for me. I was getting better in math!

Who could have thought it’s possible? My confidence grew, I grew bolder and opened up to math.

I’m eternally grateful to my math teacher and my tag-team partner. I have no clue where they are, or doing presently but I still feel indebted to them.

Besides math grades, they helped me develop a positive mindset towards tackling obstacles in life.

As we prepare to get back to class, do your kids struggle with math? Focus less on the mountain of homework and more on attitude.

Also, a conducive study environment, and especially not having to worry about the safety of their pocket money.

Take advantage of Co-opPay, a pre-paid Visa Card from Co-op Bank tailored for use by students.

With Co-opPay, a parent loads pocket money remotely, and access instant tracking of the spending.

The student can shop with the card at their canteen, malls – or, withdraw money at ATM’s. Besides, being safe and convenient, it attracts no extra charges.