IS SMART SHAMING ON GRADE 11 STUDENTS IN CITI GLOBAL COLLEGE AFFECTS

THEIR BEHAVIOR AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE?

I. INTRODUCION

We’re all familiar with many Filipinos having the infamous Crab Mentality. Or in Tagalog,
Utak Talangka. “If I can’t have it, nobody can,” goes the usual saying. Many believe that the crab
mentality only applies to material things like cars, condos, country club memberships, or other status
symbols. But when there’s nothing material to shame a person for, they prefer to insult the person’s
virtue instead. Wherein a person’s knowledge is the first thing they’ll attack. While they can’t call them
out for their lack of knowledge, they’ll instead manipulate the situation to make them appear to be the
“smart aleck.” Gohu, K. (2022)

Smart shaming or anti- intellectualism is the act of criticizing or rejecting the growth of ideas in
an intellectual conversation and showing hate and mistrust toward intellectual endeavors. Smart
shaming doesn't just happen at school, sometimes we receive it from our parents, relatives or, people
around us. Because of the smart shaming that students is receiving, it affects their behavior and
academic performances. They cannot express themselves because they are afraid of receiving another
smart shaming. Students like us might stop exploring new concepts, conducting additional research,
and reaching your full potential if smart-shaming persists. Those who are harassed for their knowledge
may underestimate their own intelligence and become self-doubting.

Most of the students nowadays have experience smart shaming. Many students are tired to go
through day by day hoping for improvement. The academic pressure they put to their selves is so tiring
because they are not smart enough to rely on stock knowledge. They badly need to study hard more
than the other, but it's still not enough. Most of the time they pretend that it doesn't bother, but it does, it
always does. A person whose craving for academic validation isn't that easy, you need to be good at all
the activities in school because they're expecting something from you. The pressure and stress will
blow away you up, you'll be staying up all night just to study and prove something, worse part is if you
didn't get the satisfaction they want, you'll end up questioning yourself if you really did your best.

Students seek academic validation for various reasons. It could be a personal goal — to be the
best graduating student, for example, or they plan to continue to college and have a blossoming career.
It could also be constant pressure from their parents to meet a certain standard. It may be challenging to
break out of the toxic mindset that academic validation induces. We must understand that we don’t
need to pressure ourselves with unnecessarily high standards. We must focus on other essentials, such
as mental, physical, and spiritual growth. Academic concerns may result from mental health issues,
such as anxiety or attention-deficit hyperactivity, but at the same time, a child might also develop
mental health concerns, such as stress, as a result of his or her academic difficulties. A child with a
learning disability that is not recognized or correctly treated, for example, might become stressed due
to parental pressure to earn better grades and frustrated with teachers who do not offer adequate
assistance. The child might then become anxious about school, and the stress might also manifest as
aggression toward the child’s teacher or peers.

Students is trying different or various ways to prevent and stop smart shaming. Some of them
tried to surpass smart shaming using their confidence, developing their self-esteem, but most of them
chose to ignore the situation even though they are still affected by it, because of that students are more
likely to be afraid or ashamed to be intelligent , they start seeing the word "intellectual" as an insult
rather than a good quality of a student, they see high intelligence as a negative trait

Smart shaming can also affect a student's drive and ability to learn, which can be related to his
or her personal skills. However, scientists have tried to establish why students are accustomed to anti-
intellectualism. One frequent cause is that students believe that they are superior to their intelligent
peers. Their ideas are seen as a challenge, instead of hurling insults, rather than engaging an individual
with anything interesting. The offended party has the feeling that the person is dumb with a specific
idea. Students only assess academic accomplishments by giving a connotation of intellectualism.