Ah yes! The teacher tries her best to assure students that marks are not "everything" and yet, when it comes down to the grass root level...
My school, recently, participated in a competition held in four parts: poetry recitation, speech recitation, creative writing and book designing. The best speech-person of the school was chosen for the poetry recitation competition. The simple reason was that the teacher in charge of training the participants of the poetry competition, felt that she stood a better chance at winning with him on her team. Never mind if he was better suited for a different competition. I say 'she' and not 'us' or 'the school', because that is exactly how things were. In her need and excitement(?) to win, she managed to skip over the first rule of the competition. She sent the student to recite T. S. Eliot when the competition called for Indo-English poets! How embarrassing to be up on the stage, all excited to play your part, only to be told that you're disqualified!
What is scary is that in our greed to secure 'personal performance', we ignore the most important aspect of the education system: the students. Three teachers teach class VIII in our school. One of them was assigned the responsibility of setting the question paper. To ensure, perhaps, that her students were more prepared for the test than any others, she hesitated in sharing the syllabus with the other two teachers. In fact, the names of the supplementary readers for the month were not shared till the very last minute. Even then, the names were revealed only through the out-of-class-interactions between the various sections! Thank goodness for interclass friendships. Perhaps we could learn a little something from them :-P
The desire for personal achievement often casts a dark, impenetrable shadow over the bigger picture. It is severely unfair to our students to send them unprepared for a competition or a test. We must question ourselves and our motives. Since when did personal performance become so important that we choose to be unjust to our students? Since when did our students become mere pawns in this game of being the "best" teacher?
I cannot help but question myself too: I'm relatively new to the profession. Would I, too, a few years down the line, resort to similar tactics? Even as I ask the question, my heart and mind, working as a team for once, answer resolutely: NO!