Pyroclastic Regurgitation

I like technology.  As much as I can want to throw my computer in the ocean sometimes, I realize that technology helps us move forward.  Whenever the power goes out I feel inexplicably uneasy.  Candles and their mood lighting are super awesome… for about an hour.  Then I’m done.

However, I do not believe that technology is, can be, or ever SHOULD be a replacement for human interaction.  The whole “robots taking over the world” thing isn’t literal in my mind; it refers to us, and how robotic we can act around each other.  We are too afraid to act “human”, which brings me to my main point: Teachers need to stop giving me C’s on my essays.

It’s not that I think I do B or A work, (believe me, I deserve most of the C’s I get… MOST of them, you frickin Literary Traditions class and your required Bibliographies.  Bibliographies are the anti-Christ of writing, and of most things) but it’s that I don’t think there should be grades period.  Since when did education become about getting a good score on a test?  Aren’t we in school to gain some of that elusive “knowledge” stuff people are always going on about?  Nowadays it is more about schools having the good numbers to show (grade and test-score-wise) in order to get more money and funding and prestige within the educational community.

Most of my educational career (and I’m truly not exaggerating) has been about structured regurgitation.  “I show you X.  You Memorize X.  You repeat X.  You forget 90% of X when the test is over.  I show you Y…etc.”  And the scary thing is… grades fucking matter.  Maybe not truthfully, but on paper, when you want a job, your diploma is gonna get you hired over Mr. Non-Diploma.  

Okay, now, I’m not one who believes that you have to go to some fancy college to make it in life.  I don’t even believe you necessarily have to go to college at all (I can name countless examples, friends and otherwise, who lead successful lives and never went to college).  But let’s create a scenario… Let’s say that Suzy’s parents want her to get into Stanford.  If she gets into Stanford and studies Law and graduates, her father will offer her a position in his law firm.

Now.  Suzy has been a 4.0 student all throughout school.  But let’s say she is right on the cusp of an A, teetering between 89 and 90 percent in her Geology class.  She has a test on Friday.  While studying Thursday she gets a call from her father that her mother has been injured in a car accident.  Having her priorities straight, she rushes to the hospital to see her mom (who is fine, don’t worry).  Because of this, she is unable to learn the definition of “Pyroclastic Flow”.

On her test the next day is a question about Pyroclastic Flow.  Suzy gets it wrong.  This causes her to get a B on her test instead of an A, which pushes her Geology grade to a B, which gives her a 3.9 GPA.  Some grumpy lady at Stanford admissions sees, immediately, that she does not have a 4.0 and disregards the rest of her application (and before you freak out on me, this is hypothetical, including the admissions process for Stanford, and the assumption that the staff of admissions is all grumpy, you sensitive ninnies).  Suzy does not get in to Stanford, and does not get a position in her father’s law firm.

Obviously, this is not the end of the world for Suzy.  She can always get a VW bus, paint it rainbow color, grow armpit hair, and sell wax-sculptures of her abstract representation of “peace”.  But this is just to show that, very realistically, grades impact our lives whether WE care about them or not, and I think that is wrong.  I think KNOWLEDGE should take precedent over grades.  Sure, someone can have a 4.0, but in NO WAY does that mean that they are intelligent.  It means that they are good at school.  Now, you can be both intelligent AND good at school, but the two do not have to go hand-in-hand; an intelligent person can completely suck at school, which is actually an extremely common thing.

But why the rant?  I don’t know.  Maybe I’m frustrated.  Maybe my hormones are going HHBLUBLUGHAGABLARGH.  Maybe I know that these things aren’t really going to change, and so I want to draw attention to them so that there is a better chance of that happening.

But then again, you all know this first-hand.  We’ve all experienced frustrations of this genre at some point, so… I guess I’m still regurgitating.  School has taught me well.