I had an epiphany in the middle of Chemistry — being that those are classes dominated by people who believe in the prevailing theory that "ADVANCED CLASSES = COLLEGE!", I had to sit through TWO CONSECUTIVE PERIODS of retardation. Therefore my conclusion is this: I hate humanity stupid people and all they stand for.
Clarification
People around my age have no idea about the mechanics of the world. They don't imagine, and furthermore, they don't try. This overwhelming apathy had lead to the pass/fail system — essentially, where students are content if they merely pass a class. What does that prove to anyone? It sure as hell doesn't show anything to people who actually want to measure a school's success in learning.
This lack of interest is probably the #1 failing of all public schools.
Are you "smart"?
I won't go as far as to say my peers have low self-esteem — in fact, it's exactly the contrary. They probably have a lot of personal pride. They just don't show it. People are regularly labeled as "fools", "stupid", "idiots", etc., even if that isn't true in the slightest. For example, the primary classification of "smart" at my school happens to primarily include those people who bother to do the work and therefore, know the material. Everyone else seems to huddle around these students, asking for answers, help, or simply to have the work done for them.
This is why I hate group activities. This is normal classroom behavior, and yet it imitates the "alpha-male/female" aspect of prehistory so well. There's simply no effort among those in a course, and regularly, when there is, it is shunned by the rest of the class as being "nerdy". This probably lent to the trend/sales increase in "I love NERDS" T-shirts that always seem to piss me off.
Scraping their way up...
The majority of my peers don't care what the hell a class teaches them — they'll take an AP test and shamelessly admit that they received, let's say, a 2 out of 5, where a 1 is a failing grade, which is basically a waste of $60. In addition, they will continue to take AP courses — to do what? Prove a point? To whom? They likely presume that most of the work in a class is going to be busy work; that all tests are going to be multiple choice; that they're unable to do any problem that requires written work. And because of this, freshmen and sophomores think they can't make 5's on the AP test when I did it - how? I studied. I wrote from the heart. Something they fail to understand is that if you know the material, you can phrase it however you want.
However, once I mentioned that, the response was the same. Gasp! "But I'm not smart!". HATE.
Where did we go wrong?
Why do so many people I know fail to respond with, "Please" and "Thank You"? Why is there still cutting in lines, something supposedly evaporated after elementary school, and stealing from the cafeteria? Is this somehow related to lack of education — or lack of enforcement of these habits? I see the cafeteria ladies put up with so much shit every day from the long lines of people who just feel they have to be assholes 24/7. And when they're not being assholes, they're busy creating social alliances within the school that ultimately lead to the same problems over and over again. Here, we can refer to these alliances as specific classes, and now having a class system, wow! We went back in time again.
In conclusion
I've confronted these problems again and again. I myself have gasped and scorned all those who even dare to undermine the education system I prefer to have. Yet I can't help but feel pity to those victims of apathy, because the truth of the matter is that history always repeats itself.
Read 4 comments (Leave a comment?)
Rebecca said:
To be frank, life is kind of like that in general. People have a tendency to be lazy and mooch off of others, simply because they can and it’s easier. Also, most people are insecure enough that they need some type of social hiearchy to make themselves feel superior to somebody else. But such is life.
Posted on August 29, 2006 6:08 PM; Permalink
Biscuitrat said:
So I’ve unhappily noticed :(
Posted on August 29, 2006 7:59 PM; Permalink
Mis said:
I couldn’t of said it better myself.
Posted on August 30, 2006 7:26 AM; Permalink
Tiffany said:
Wow, I really enjoyed this blog. I for one took an AP class and did poorly on the exam. The free response question got me. I took it because my counselor told me that I should and I really had no desire to do so until then, and the fact that I thought it’d look good on my college application.
Posted on August 30, 2006 10:30 PM; Permalink