Knowing or Convincing?

A few days ago, I realised how positive I am. By this, I mean I don't like to put myself in the middle of girls drama. I refuse to believe in continuous failure. It makes me uncomfortable when I'm talking to someone that will criticise person after person after person...who cares?!

On the down side, being so positive has made me put aside reality. I have a tendency to try and forget the failures, or anything that might have disappointed or upset me. Why is this bad? Because sometimes, I don't think realistically. When I receive a low test score, I sulk for about two minutes, and then find excuses that may have contributed to the result. I convince myself that it was bad luck, and that I would do so much better next time. While everyone's so fearless, calculating their GPAs, I sat there with my test scrunched up at the bottom of my bag, not giving a care in the world about my grades. Because i "knew" I would perform better on the next test.

But deep inside, I know it's fear that keeps me from facing reality. It's the fear that holds me back from calculating my GPA with the other kids, because I knew that if my GPA dropped, I would be even more scared and frustrated. I guess it's good that I have a positive attitude about any situation, but with time running out, I feel left behind, because while everyone's raising their grades, I'm always telling myself "I'll do better next time". and the truth is, I'm running out of "next times".

Sometimes, I get mixed feelings about a certain situation. For example, there was a time when a guy liked me. I guess he was alright, so I liked him... or so I thought. For a few months, I convinced myself that I liked this guy, when in reality, I was only flattered. We talked about emotions, and how we "know" through what we feel. But can our feelings be deceiving? What's the difference between feeling flattered, and feeling as if you like that person? In both cases, there are butterflies in your stomach. You blush when you see the other person. You become shy. I made a mistake because I thought I knew exactly what I felt.

I don't know what the future holds for me. I don't know where I'm going to university, I don't know if I'll get my dream job. I don't even know what my dream job is. There is a fine line between "knowing" and "convincing myself that I know". And until I'm certain about anything, I guess I'll keep positive and continue to convince myself.

DW

This year, I went on the Philippines Service Trip for the second time. The second time to definitely different from the first time, in the sense that things weren't as surprising as they were when I first visited. Last year, I got on the plane not knowing what to expect. I packed around three sweaters not realising that it would be 36 degrees celcius in the Philippines. I went with the thought that all it was, was seven days of sweating, playing with some kids, getting tanned, then returning. I didn't know that I would make the relationships that I did with those children home kids. I had no idea that the labor would result in so much pain. I had absolutely no idea that I would drink bottle after bottle after bottle of water, and not have to go to the bathroom the whole day, because the water would leave my body through all the sweat.

Going back the second time, I already had knowledge about the living conditions of the community, and place we stayed at, I knew some of the children there, and I knew the intensity of the physical labor that awaited us. I knew what the weather would be, and what the food would be like.

What I didn't know, was the exhilaration that I would get after seeing the finished product of the classroom building that we built the base of. I didn't know that such happiness could exist from these orphan kids who were more than excited to see us return. I had no clue that I would be so thrilled to see kids mature from the previous year, and to continue building relationships with them.

I realised that the more we experience, the more we open our eyes to the possibilities and great achievements and awful in this world. No matter what we see through the experiences, we will gain knowledge and learn something from our surroundings.

Do we NEED Grades?

In class the other day, we discussed whether schools needed numbers to strictly quantify the level of performance and knowledge a student has gained in that quarter, semester, year. Many would say "OF COURSE! IS THAT EVEN A QUESTION?! HOW WOULD YOU KNOW IF KIDS LEARN ANYTHING?!" HOW ELSE WOULD KIDS GET INTO COLLEGE AND GET RECOGNISED AND LIVE A SUCCESSFUL LIFE?!"

And then I started thinking...
Well, kids these days don't come to school to learn anyway. What are they going to do once they're on they're own after high school? School has turned into a place of mere academic competition, a place where only numbers on your report cards matter, a place where anyone would rather cheat to get a 97 than to actually pay attention in class and absorb information out of pure interest. Do you see the problem here? It just struck me a few weeks ago that this quarter, I had been slacking. So of course my report card would be terrible. What did that mean? It meant that I would go home to disappoint my parents, that my GPA would drop, that I would lose hope in my academic career, and most of all, disappoint myself. Why? simply because I wouldn't have the 4.0 GPA that all the other students would be complaining about.

The thing is, school should be a place of STUDENTS GATHERED TO PURSUE THEIR INTERESTS. If we are interested, we will listen. If we listen, we will be fascinated, and we will grow a passion for the things we learn. When we are passionate, we will take EVEN MORE INTEREST, and school will be somewhere students will WANT to spend eight hours in. We should all be excited every morning to enter the doors with a passion for the classes we take. We should WANT to seek help out of our own time and energy, because we feel frustrated of not knowing something fully. Yet from what I see everyday, this isn't the case. I blame it partially on numerical grades. I admit I am also a part of this group, it's frustrating how I am constantly dragged down by the numbers. Obviously if students get bad grades, they will think the teacher thinks of them as inadequate students. The self esteem they once had, thinking they were doing well? It'll hit the ground the minute our eyes make contact with those digits. Will students want to ask for help and carry conversations with teachers then? Absolutely not.

Then how would we know how well we're learning, or how much effort we put into our assignments? Hold conversations! Engage each other, and if we don't know something, teach each other. I don't know. but I certainly don't think numbers and percentages should be the way. Students can cheat their way out of tests, projects, even out of high school. But what happens next? In the real world, no one's going to ask me SAT questions or take interest in how well I did on that one quiz on trigonometry back in high school. When us kids apply for jobs in the future, people will want to sense passion. A genuine interest for what we want to pursue. They will want to hold conversations about current events and new findings and they will want to hear our opinions and ideas.

How is grading students out of 100... How is that even close to preparing us for the future?