You tap your foot impatiently as Aspen slowly loads in, your nerves prickling with anxiety. Will it be an A? Will it be a B? Your eyes snap back to the screen as the familiar olive green appears, and your gaze moves immediately to the “Recent Activities” tab, squinting at your latest grades. You feel your blood run cold as you see a six. Six out of what? Ten? Twenty? You click on your academics tab, hands shaking violently, teeth chattering in fear. You squeeze your eyes shut as you brace yourself for the horror of whatever grade you have received. You open one, sighing in relief at the gorgeous six out of six in front of you. That was a close one; if it had been anything else, you would have beaten yourself up for days over that grade.

Lexington High School’s community has normalized associating grades with self-worth due to the school’s competitive nature. It is, of course, unavoidable not to be disappointed or excited about one’s grades. After a certain point, however, I think the disappointment consistently outweighs the excitement. The truth is, for many students, a low grade completely demolishes their self-worth, which is harmful to one’s self-esteem both in the short term and, more importantly, the long term.

The feeling that your grades will determine your future, competition among friends, and pressure from parents, all of this has amounted to students valuing their grades over their health. This includes not getting enough sleep, because if you don’t get an A, you are a failure. Why not stay up until four in the morning if it means a few extra points? This mentality will push you into a negative feedback loop. Not getting enough sleep will make you perform worse and slower at school, which will force you to stay up late again, and again, and again.

Competition can be beneficial in moderate amounts, but not when coupled with a constant obsession over grades. All it does is create unnecessary conflict surrounding everyone’s shared insecurity about their grades. And, of course, many of us have parents who hold us to a high standard, which often does more harm than good. With all of these factors in mind, it is important to remember that your grades won’t determine everything in your life. You aren’t going to be kicked out of school for one bad grade, and your life won’t end. The world will keep turning. As a school, we should strive to separate our self-worth from our grades, and see them for what they are: one piece of feedback for one assignment that we can use to improve ourselves in the future, not a reason to think that we will never move forward in life.