Finding My Rhythm: The Real Talk About Balancing Work and Studies as an International Student

The quiet middle rows - where the majority of students spend their school years waiting to be truly seen.

Introduction: The Students Nobody Talks About

Picture a classroom. Thirty students sit in neat rows. The teacher stands at the front, scanning the room. Who gets the attention?

Usually, it is the brilliant student who scores the highest marks. Teachers praise them. Parents celebrate them. Their names appear on award lists and honor boards.

Then there is the struggling student. The one who falls behind. The one who needs extra help. Teachers work with them. Parents worry about them. Interventions are arranged, and meetings are scheduled.

But what about the student in the middle? The one who never causes trouble. The one who never wins awards. The one whose name teachers barely mention. They quietly complete assignments, show up every day, and go home without anyone asking about their day.

Most students are not extremes. Most students fall somewhere between the highest achievers and those who struggle the most. Yet they are often the most overlooked group in education.

This article is about them, the children who never get to be average because they are never truly noticed at all.

The Average Students I Grew Up With in Rural Nepal

I grew up in a village in Nepal. No electricity. No telephone. No roads for transport. I walked an hour to school every day, often on an empty stomach, in worn-out shoes or sometimes barefoot.

My school was simple: a mud floor, a blackboard, and a few wooden benches. We had a teacher who did their best with almost nothing. About thirty students sat in that classroom. We were all poor, and we all struggled. But within our small group, there was still a clear range.

The simple beginnings where life's biggest, unmeasured lessons first took root.

There were the top students, the ones who memorized everything and scored highest on exams. They received constant praise from the teacher and admiration from the rest of us.

Then there were the struggling students who could not keep up. They repeated grades, receiving extra attention, extra help, and sometimes extra scolding.

And then there were the rest of us. The students in the middle. We attended class every day. We did our homework when we could. We passed our exams. We never caused trouble. We were simply there.

I remember a boy named Ram. He never topped the class, but he never failed either. Nobody talked about him. He was quiet, did his work, and went home.

Years later, he became one of the first people from our village to start a successful business. He created jobs. He educated his children. He built a meaningful life that nobody in our school could have predicted.

Ram was not alone. Many of the quiet students in my village became something remarkable: the farmer who educated all his children, the nurse who moved abroad, the shop owner who created community jobs, the father who broke the cycle of poverty.

Most of them were never considered exceptional students. Yet they became exceptional people.

School performance rarely predicts who will succeed in life. The average students in my village were only “average” within the narrow, rigid measurements of a classroom.

The Day I Realized Most Students Are Invisible

Years after leaving school, I sat down and tried to remember my classmates.

The class topper came to mind immediately. I could recall her name, her face, and the awards she won. The troublemaker also stood out; I remembered his name, the jokes he told, and the trouble he caused. The star athlete was there too. I remembered his speed, his confidence, and his popularity.

But the vast majority of my classmates simply disappeared from my memory. I could not remember their names, their faces, or what they were uniquely good at.

It felt strange. These were people I had sat next to for years. We had learned together, played together, and grown up together. Yet they had become completely invisible in my mind.

Why do we remember the extremes but forget the majority?

Behind every quiet face in the schoolyard lies a story and a potential that grades can never fully capture.

The answer lies in how our brains work. We naturally notice what stands out. We remember what is different. We remember what is loud. The middle is quiet. The middle is easy to forget.

This realization changed how I see education. It made me wonder about all those invisible students. What were their dreams? What were their struggles? What did they become? And most importantly, how did it feel to spend twelve years of school being nobody special?

The Hidden Psychology: The Pygmalion Effect and the Curse of Being “Fine”

Educational psychology has long studied how expectations influence performance. One of the most well-known concepts is called the Pygmalion Effect.

When teachers expect more from certain students, those students often perform better. When teachers expect less, students tend to perform worse. This happens through subtle, unconscious actions: more attention, extra encouragement, and more challenging questions.

Students notice this quickly. They adjust their belief in themselves based on how they are treated. Over time, these expectations shape reality.

This is deeply relevant to average students. When a child is repeatedly categorized as “just fine” or “average,” they begin to accept it as an identity.

• Average score becomes average student becomes average person
• This shift is silent but powerful
• It limits ambition and lowers expectations

There is a dangerous comfort zone in being “fine.” You are not struggling enough to trigger intervention, but not excelling enough to receive recognition. You exist quietly in the middle. Over time, that invisibility starts to feel normal.

Why Education Measures the Wrong Things

Schools measure what is easy to track: test scores, attendance, rankings, and graduation statistics. But the qualities that shape a successful human life are rarely written down on a report card.

What Schools Track	What Life Actually Requires
Exam ranks	Persistence and grit
Memorization	Emotional intelligence
Attendance	Adaptability and curiosity
Rule following	Empathy and leadership

Many successful people were never top students. Their strengths developed later, outside the classroom.

I experienced this myself when I moved from rural Nepal to Singapore for higher studies. I carried the belief that I was “just average.” It took years to unlearn that idea and realize my potential was never defined by school rankings.

A blank canvas waiting for strengths that standard report cards choose to leave unwritten.

Actionable Steps for Parents and Teachers

What Parents Can Do

• Stop constant comparisons between children
• Celebrate progress instead of rank
• Ask better questions beyond grades

What Teachers Can Do

• Learn every student’s story
• Recognize quiet strengths like consistency and kindness
• Make sure attention is distributed, not concentrated only at extremes

Conclusion: The Children We Notice Too Late

When I think about my village school in Nepal, I do not remember the top marks. I remember the lives that unfolded later.

People who were never exceptional students became truly exceptional adults. Not because school predicted it, but because life revealed it.

The middle students eventually become the backbone of society. They are the builders, caregivers, workers, and parents who keep everything running.

If they are so important to the future, why are they the least noticed in the present?

The children in the middle deserve to be seen. They deserve to be understood. And they deserve to believe in their own potential.

Maybe the real change begins when we finally start noticing them in time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are average students often overlooked?
Because systems focus on extremes: struggling students need intervention, top students bring recognition, and the middle receives little attention.

Does average performance mean average potential?
No. School measures a narrow set of skills, not real-world ability or long-term potential.

What is the risk of labeling a child as average?
It can shape identity. Over time, children may start believing the label instead of their potential.

Share Your Story

Did you grow up as a quiet student in the middle, unnoticed but present? Or are you a parent trying to understand your child beyond grades?

Your experience might help someone else see this differently.

With love,
- Bitty

Brugge, Belgium 🇧🇪 

If you are reflecting on the paths we take after school, you might find value in my other piece: What I Wish I Knew at 18: The Truth About Life, Work, and Growth

Turn your whole body toward your child. And if someone is waiting for you, go now. Not soon. Now.