Here's what 45 minutes of College writing gets you
The following is my second written, first turned in, college paper, produced in 45 minutes, and in response to an article on the abolishment of grades and their affects on competition among students:
This selection provided numerous examples as to how today’s students not only reject learning, but resent the system which is to provide it. The best examples were those related from actual student writings, rather than the author’s own writing, as the author tended to take a voice which declared his thought was the best thought. At times the author’s voice became too overpowering and thus made a less convincing point, because as many realize, forcing opinions just forces people away. Nonetheless, the author’s overall goal was achieved, and conveyed me to reconsider the educational system I had been molded to, and relate my own beliefs to those portrayed in the student writings.
There is a metaphor presented in the text, relating the educational system to the Army. It says “…that it is a far cry from obeying the rules to actually believing that the army is a wise and just institution”. I found this to be quite true, in that most people will continue acting in parts of society in which they do not believe, simply because it is the easiest, and often the only way, to manage through life. We do internalize rules, we take them in and act on them almost subconsciously, and stutter when a reality is presented to which we cannot apply such rules. This is why many students become “lazy” when put into a more relaxed or loosely structured situation, not just in terms of school, but also social situations.
We are used to thinking in confinement, and have been given a false sense that we are making “choices”. The author explicates on the fact that those students who succeed the most, by societies’ standards, have simply learned to regurgitate the best. Nothing that I have encountered in school has ever proven this wrong. The students who pride themselves on their A’s often become arrogant and look down on those who got lower grades, even if it was mere points below them. Because they believe they are smarter, they feel they have a right to do this, but frequently they have not “learned” anything. They simply found the pathway to the professor’s heart, and then wore the path down to a muddy trail.
I could say that sometimes teachers do ask for something completely un-regurgitated, simply your “own”. But even with that, we are forced to perform. We are all conscious human beings, and it is our nature to record and adapt accordingly. Thus, when our teacher asks us to write a paper about, say, our views on the abolishment of racial injustice in the world, we will have already recorded the teacher’s own opinions and preferences simply by seeing him react during every class. And of course, we adapt ourselves and write with the goal of “surviving”, and generate our beliefs and opinions into a mold which that teacher has set. It is very natural, very Darwinian. It cannot be said that this is completely the fault of the school system, when it is partly due to nature. Once we know there is a reward, it is nature to do our best to receive it.
Where I disagree with the author is in this. He implies that there should be no emphasis on reward in school, and therefore we would all learn by our natural desire for it. Later, however, he concedes that the desire for knowledge is greedy, it is still something we are going to compete for. While it is true that our motive in learning should not be to surpass the success of our peers, it is irrational to think that grades should not be a motivation at all. We must receive some sort of measure on our abilities to “capture the prey”, if you will, or else our society would have no way of determining if people were fit for particular jobs. It is doubtful that the author himself would let a surgeon open him up, knowing that the surgeon had actually passed his labs with D’s, but somehow gotten A’s on the courses that didn’t involve his cutting ability, and thus passed Med school. He even says that you must accept failing grades after continuing failure “because they indicate that you are heading for the wrong profession”. Without grades, how would he have been able to make such a statement?
This selection provided numerous examples as to how today’s students not only reject learning, but resent the system which is to provide it. The best examples were those related from actual student writings, rather than the author’s own writing, as the author tended to take a voice which declared his thought was the best thought. At times the author’s voice became too overpowering and thus made a less convincing point, because as many realize, forcing opinions just forces people away. Nonetheless, the author’s overall goal was achieved, and conveyed me to reconsider the educational system I had been molded to, and relate my own beliefs to those portrayed in the student writings.
There is a metaphor presented in the text, relating the educational system to the Army. It says “…that it is a far cry from obeying the rules to actually believing that the army is a wise and just institution”. I found this to be quite true, in that most people will continue acting in parts of society in which they do not believe, simply because it is the easiest, and often the only way, to manage through life. We do internalize rules, we take them in and act on them almost subconsciously, and stutter when a reality is presented to which we cannot apply such rules. This is why many students become “lazy” when put into a more relaxed or loosely structured situation, not just in terms of school, but also social situations.
We are used to thinking in confinement, and have been given a false sense that we are making “choices”. The author explicates on the fact that those students who succeed the most, by societies’ standards, have simply learned to regurgitate the best. Nothing that I have encountered in school has ever proven this wrong. The students who pride themselves on their A’s often become arrogant and look down on those who got lower grades, even if it was mere points below them. Because they believe they are smarter, they feel they have a right to do this, but frequently they have not “learned” anything. They simply found the pathway to the professor’s heart, and then wore the path down to a muddy trail.
I could say that sometimes teachers do ask for something completely un-regurgitated, simply your “own”. But even with that, we are forced to perform. We are all conscious human beings, and it is our nature to record and adapt accordingly. Thus, when our teacher asks us to write a paper about, say, our views on the abolishment of racial injustice in the world, we will have already recorded the teacher’s own opinions and preferences simply by seeing him react during every class. And of course, we adapt ourselves and write with the goal of “surviving”, and generate our beliefs and opinions into a mold which that teacher has set. It is very natural, very Darwinian. It cannot be said that this is completely the fault of the school system, when it is partly due to nature. Once we know there is a reward, it is nature to do our best to receive it.
Where I disagree with the author is in this. He implies that there should be no emphasis on reward in school, and therefore we would all learn by our natural desire for it. Later, however, he concedes that the desire for knowledge is greedy, it is still something we are going to compete for. While it is true that our motive in learning should not be to surpass the success of our peers, it is irrational to think that grades should not be a motivation at all. We must receive some sort of measure on our abilities to “capture the prey”, if you will, or else our society would have no way of determining if people were fit for particular jobs. It is doubtful that the author himself would let a surgeon open him up, knowing that the surgeon had actually passed his labs with D’s, but somehow gotten A’s on the courses that didn’t involve his cutting ability, and thus passed Med school. He even says that you must accept failing grades after continuing failure “because they indicate that you are heading for the wrong profession”. Without grades, how would he have been able to make such a statement?