The Thing About Burnouts

In my 12 years of being a student of the same school, I've made history and brought glory to the name and reputation of the institution.

Peers and alumni might have recognized me as that little girl who spoke and understood English more fluently than the rest of the class; the little girl who was appointed by her homeroom teacher as president of her first-grade class despite having no experience in team building or leadership but was put in that position anyway due to apparently being the most 'responsible' at the time; the kid who had the reading comprehension of a 12th grader; the kid who read both the fourth and fifth editions of the American Heritage Dictionary for a spelling bee; the kid who made it to the nationals for a science quiz bee; the kid whose diary assignment was kept by a teacher due to it being so incredibly written; the kid who was never missing in her school's speaking competitions and poster making contests.

By the time I finished 6th grade (the end of elementary education in the Philippines), I had collected over 30 medals from academics and extracurriculars combined. Not a very amazing number to be considered a prodigy, but at the time and maybe even now, some would kill to achieve that sort of personal record.

I was indeed a trophy child. Every competition I was in and every achievement I earned, my parents took pictures and posted them on Facebook. Every certificate I earned was put up on the social media network before they were even framed on the wall. It didn't matter if I was 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place--as long as I went places and my name was present at an event, my parents were proud. I earned praise and admiration from their friends and have even been compared or used as an example to their kids. I could see that my parents were incredibly proud of the child genius that I was.

And I took pride in that, of course. In the Philippines, before the age of toddlers watching Baby Shark and Frozen, when your child speaks an awful lot of English starting at a young age due to influences from cartoons and books, that child is bound to grow up into a genius. Parents are bound to have high expectations from their children considering the talent and gift they were blessed with. With the gift of advancement in literacy, what could go wrong?