You are not your ENTER. The huge poster with this message is plastered in the far left corner of the VCE common room. Behind the words a young girl smiles brightly.
Moving to the far right corner, a cabinet holds stacks of books about VCE ENTER scores, university courses and pamphlets for training courses.
In big, bold letters one poster exclaims: "An intense examination preparation lecture that guarantees to improve examination scores and boost your ENTER!"
Is it just me or is there a highly conflicting message being given to VCE students?
For the moment, let's all gather around in a circle and hold hands, and sing Kumbaya. Let's forget about all the stress aroused by the soaring work loads, deadlines and nagging teachers who twitter, "Girls, it's your future."
OK, VCE is a year about achievement, perseverance, endurance and it is the fundamental — oops — one of the many pathways to secure a prosperous future.
From year 11, the poor victims of the soon impending VCE mania are ambushed with subject selections — "Personal Learning" lectures where their minds are flooded with toxic phrases such as "It's demanding" and "VCE is a hell of a lot of work".
I understand that year 12 is the most important of all the school years; that it is the main determinant of whether you get into your desired tertiary course and that this final year should be taken with utter seriousness. I should know this as I'm completing my last year.
But through my experience of having completed term one and being halfway through term two, I have not only been forced to jump on the academic treadmill and join the frantic race like many others across Australia, but I have tripped and fractured my ego a few times and, as a result, I have continued on at a slower pace.
That's normal. That's what VCE is all about. Nobody finishes a race without a twisted ankle, or fighting back a deathly episode of wheezing. Just ask an Olympic athlete.
There is an antidote for stress. Optimism. Hope. Belief and will power.
So, when a teacher approached me yesterday and asked me, "Sahar, how do you get a student motivated?", the answer is simple.
When a child begins high school, the years leading up to year 11 are a relative "bludge". There is no hefty workload and they have time for things like Twilight.
However, VCE brings on a bombardment of books: A Student Guide, Chemistry checkpoints, English Insight, and, yes, John Donne poetry.
Indeed, VCE is not only the end to their adolescence but it is also the end to their innocence. The cherry and cream to their life is instantly swiped. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
When VCE students are overwhelmed with assignments, Outcomes and SACs, it goes without saying that stress and anxiety levels will reach their tipping point.
Swinburne University research shows that one in five Victorian year 12 students have considered suicide or self-harm because of the pressure. These figures are horrendous. As a year 12 student, I feel particularly mortified.
Often the strategy employed by students when stress levels reach their maximum is the phenomenon called the "fright-flight response". Put more teenage friendly, if it gets too hard, drop everything and run! I must admit that I have fallen victim to this phenomenon and it's not because I don't care about my education, but because I care too much.
By year 12, almost all students understand the importance of their ENTER for their further tertiary education. They have to learn to "master the VCE" (to draw on a caption that many training courses use).
Most of us dream of owning luxurious mansions. We all want to ostentatiously flaunt our flashy Mercedes or our Porsche to the neighbours. And call me a fool, but the confronting poster "You are not your ENTER" actually provides a little relief and reduces my stress levels fractionally.
So teachers, if a student does understand the importance of their future and is temporarily unfocused due to a lapse of mental strength: Leave them alone. We don't need your extra "encouragement" to add to our plummeting levels of sanity.
We are not "VCE slaves" — nor should we be.
Lapse of motivation? Pfft. Relax. We're only human.
Sahar Al Baiiaty is a year 12 student at Preston Girls Secondary College.
