Photo: BBC
Jeremy Clarkson is an interesting fellow. Let's leave aside the fact that he is known for its Top Gear and Amazon Prime car shows and focus on what Clarkson, as an individual, tries to say through his latest tweet.
The curious tweet can be found just below these paragraphs and is, at first glance, the worst thing you can tell British youngsters. Encouraging teens to be mediocre with their education isn't a popular thing to do, especially if you're the parent of one, but you know something? Trying to be excellent isn't worth thriving for. I'll be much obliged to explain why's that.
Focusing on education more than building personal relationships will grow kids into workaholic loners or the exact opposite of the soul of a party. Teen years are the best years to grow as an individual, nurture your character and personality with new experiences, laughs, heartbreaks, and promises.
I'm not trying to imply that it's OK to be a useless couch potato.
The bottom line is that pushing your kid into a corner, using his education as an excuse for it, is the worst thing a parent can do for the individual who finds himself at the vantage point between younghood and adulthood. I am deeply grateful to my parents for not using their authority into making me a know-it-all, but making me a better person by presenting the possible consequences of something wrong I did or said when I was younger and didn't know how the world works.
I still don't, but I'm getting there.
A plethora of great scientists and popular culture icons (but not the Miley Cyrus type of pop icon) didn't get straight As. Some of them even dropped school to dedicate their time and energy into making a name for themselves. Clarkson was expelled from Repton School for "drinking, smoking and generally making a nuisance of himself."
He still does these things, but he acquired a unique character and look how well things go for him. Earning multiple million pounds sterling per year, driving the most exotic cars in the world for a living, known by hundreds of million of people around the world through his work, and sitting in a villa in St. Tropez is what Jeremy Clarkson accomplished for being a bit of a problem child in his teenage years.
That's life experience for you.
Clarkson's and this editor's opinion on youngsters who got Cs and Us may polarise public opinion, but we're all individuals and we all have our views on what is life and how it should be lived. Opinions, by definition, are not to be taken for granted thanks to this wonderful invention we like to call the free world, especially in the U. S. of A.. If capitalism will ever force the individual to respect an opinion he doesn't clinches with, then totalitarianism would make a comeback and nobody in their right mind would wish for that.
The latter is the reason this editor holds respect for those individuals who prove me wrong in a well-argued manner. To some extent, I believe Clarkson holds a similar type of respect deep inside of him.
Focusing on education more than building personal relationships will grow kids into workaholic loners or the exact opposite of the soul of a party. Teen years are the best years to grow as an individual, nurture your character and personality with new experiences, laughs, heartbreaks, and promises.
I'm not trying to imply that it's OK to be a useless couch potato.
The bottom line is that pushing your kid into a corner, using his education as an excuse for it, is the worst thing a parent can do for the individual who finds himself at the vantage point between younghood and adulthood. I am deeply grateful to my parents for not using their authority into making me a know-it-all, but making me a better person by presenting the possible consequences of something wrong I did or said when I was younger and didn't know how the world works.
I still don't, but I'm getting there.
A plethora of great scientists and popular culture icons (but not the Miley Cyrus type of pop icon) didn't get straight As. Some of them even dropped school to dedicate their time and energy into making a name for themselves. Clarkson was expelled from Repton School for "drinking, smoking and generally making a nuisance of himself."
He still does these things, but he acquired a unique character and look how well things go for him. Earning multiple million pounds sterling per year, driving the most exotic cars in the world for a living, known by hundreds of million of people around the world through his work, and sitting in a villa in St. Tropez is what Jeremy Clarkson accomplished for being a bit of a problem child in his teenage years.
That's life experience for you.
Clarkson's and this editor's opinion on youngsters who got Cs and Us may polarise public opinion, but we're all individuals and we all have our views on what is life and how it should be lived. Opinions, by definition, are not to be taken for granted thanks to this wonderful invention we like to call the free world, especially in the U. S. of A.. If capitalism will ever force the individual to respect an opinion he doesn't clinches with, then totalitarianism would make a comeback and nobody in their right mind would wish for that.
The latter is the reason this editor holds respect for those individuals who prove me wrong in a well-argued manner. To some extent, I believe Clarkson holds a similar type of respect deep inside of him.
If your A level results aren't great, be cheered by the fact that I got a C and two Us. And I'm currently sitting in a villa in St Tropez.
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) August 13, 2015
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