Education is not a 100-metre race that begins in kindergarten; it is a long and evolving journey of self-discovery
A few days ago, I met a friend in Margao. In the middle of casual conversation, her face suddenly lit up with pride as she shared her daughter’s achievement — third rank in KG-2. The child is barely out of her toddler years, yet the rank had already become a family milestone.
Early pride
I smiled, congratulated her warmly, and moved on. But the encounter stayed with me. Why do we load such tiny shoulders with such heavy expectations? Why have marks and ranks begun to matter so much — and so early?
Kindergarten pressure
Kindergarten, ideally, is a place for colours, stories, clay models, laughter and first friendships. It is where a child learns to hold a pencil, not where a child should learn to carry pressure. Yet today, even at that stage, comparison begins — with neighbours, classmates, cousins and WhatsApp groups silently displaying report cards like trophies. And the moment comparison enters a child’s world, anxiety quietly follows.
Success myth
This brings us to a troubling question: do early ranks predict later success? Experience tells a very different story from what society believes.
Many children who top the class in the early years do not necessarily remain toppers later in life. Equally, many who were once considered “average” grow into confident professionals, creative thinkers, entrepreneurs, artists and deeply compassionate human beings. Life, after all, does not run on report cards. It runs on resilience, curiosity, communication, emotional strength and the ability to rise after failure
— qualities that no KG-2 progress sheet can measure.
Comparison trap
The real danger lies in comparison. The most damaging sentence a child hears is not, “You got fewer marks,” but “Look at the other child.” In that instant, learning stops being a joy and becomes a race.
A child who was once eager to discover the world now begins to measure self-worth through someone else’s performance. The healthy question, “How much have I grown?” gets replaced by the anxious question, “Where do I stand?”
Childhood rhythm
We must also pause and ask what constant performance does to the natural rhythm of childhood. A child who is always being evaluated soon begins to live in the future — the next test, the next result, the next comparison — and loses the ability to live in the present. Play begins to look unproductive. Curiosity appears to be a distraction. Rest is mistaken for laziness. In such a climate, learning is no longer an adventure; it becomes a duty.
Hidden strengths
Ironically, the very qualities that help children succeed in the long run are those that cannot be forced — the confidence to speak without fear, the freedom to ask “why,” the joy of discovering something independently, and the emotional security that comes from knowing that love at home is not conditional upon performance. When these are present, excellence often follows quietly and naturally.
Different paces
There is another dimension we rarely acknowledge. Every child develops at a different pace. Some bloom early, some later, and some in entirely unexpected fields. The education system may have uniform timetables, but human growth does not. When we insist that all children peak at the same time and in the same way, we are not measuring them — we are limiting them.
True education encourages a child to compete only with yesterday’s self — to become a little better, a little kinder, a little more confident than before. Progress is not a number; it is a journey.
Expectation triangle
The pressure that pushes children into this race is not created by them. It is carefully constructed around them. Parents fear their child will fall behind in an increasingly competitive world. Schools feel compelled to produce visible, quantifiable results. Society celebrates rank-holders more readily than balanced individuals. In this triangle of expectation, childhood gets squeezed, often without anyone intending harm.
Emotional cost
The emotional cost of this system is rarely discussed. When achievement becomes identity, two silent fears begin to grow in a child’s mind: If I fail, will I still be loved? If I am not first, am I still good enough? Such fears do not produce excellence; they produce insecurity. They create children who are afraid to try, afraid to fail, and sometimes afraid to be themselves.
Rethinking success
It is time, therefore, to rethink what we mean by success. Do we want high-scoring children, or do we want healthy, confident, thinking human beings? Because the two are not always the same.
A child who learns to ask questions, to explore beyond the textbook, to lose and try again, to work with others, and to discover personal strengths is far better prepared for life than a child trained only to score marks. The world today rewards adaptability, empathy, creativity and emotional balance far more than the ability to reproduce memorised answers.
Where change begins
Change, however, cannot remain a philosophical idea; it must begin in our homes and classrooms. At home, appreciation must shift from rank to effort, from comparison to improvement. In schools, especially in the foundational years, narrative feedback can replace public ranking, allowing children to grow without the constant glare of competition. And as a society, perhaps the most powerful change would be to alter the questions we ask our children. Instead of “What rank did you get?”, we might ask, “What did you enjoy learning today?”
If we truly wish to prepare our children for life and not merely for examinations, then we must replace the language of ranking with the language of growth, the culture of comparison with the culture of encouragement, and the fear of failure with the dignity of effort.
Lifelong journey
Education is not a 100-metre race that begins in kindergarten; it is a long and evolving journey of self-discovery.
The real winner in life is not the child who comes first in KG-2, but the one who grows up with confidence, balance, compassion and the courage to be himself or herself.
Our report card
And perhaps the real report card that needs examination is not the child’s. It is our own — as parents, educators and as a society.
(The writer is an advocate by profession and a YouTuber by passion, with a deep concern for the well-being of coming generations.)
