Commentary Magazine

Could it be that grades are harming education? [2605]

Before you throw my opinion out of the window, claiming that I am merely a lazy student, i’d ask you to think about the question for a second: do grades really improve learning? Could it be possible that they harm it?

Supposedly, the argument for the use of grades is merely evaluation, but if it is, why are grades used in universities? Why is so much pressure and importance put into a mere evaluation? Sure, it’s useful when wanting to take only those with higher academic performances, but it also limits the academic freedoms of the teachers, and ultimately creates a system that centers around the wrong thing.

Let’s start from what is usually done at the start of class: checking the homework. Have you noticed how much homework you get, and how (in some classes) much of it seems watered-down and redundant to your class? the fact is that lots of the homework system is a bastard child of the grade system.

Sure, homework can be very useful. Essays, proofs, research, critical thinking, projects. However, it often happens that teachers are forced, because of the fact that they know all students are supposed to get the highest grade possible, homework designed to repeat what is said in class in a manner of near-thoughtless drudgery.

Yes, we again see the appeal to the lowest common denominator, but this time in a system that takes upon itself the patronage of knowledge and thinking. Each person might be quite able at understanding a subject, but try to find the understanding that they all share and poof! you are left with practically nothing.

As this hypothetical class progresses, the teacher hands out a test, and it is a multiple choice test. Multiple choice tests, aren’t they fun? How much does your score in a multiple choice test correlate with your understanding?

a. quite a lot
b. enough
c. not necessarily that much
d. both a and c
e. none of the above

If you chose c, you are probably right. however, does that show that you know why it is c? that you even understood the question? Often times multiple choice tests can be passed by using methods of eliminative logic instead of knowledge or understanding of the subject. Besides, how can you at all express understanding by choosing an answer from a list?

All this was known to teachers for quite a while now, and yet they continue to hand out multiple choice tests, why? because they are easy to grade. If grades were treated as evaluation instead of as achievement, multiple choice tests, and possibly timed tests in general, would be tossed out of the window for what it is: A worthless evaluation that has nothing to do with understanding of the subject.

But that is not the main problem. The main problem is looking at what is supposed to be only a reflection of true achievement as the actual achievement, and the consequential pressure on both students and teachers to conform to standards of mediocrity.

Abortion: A Strange Debate [954]

How many biological and/or psychological features must a man develop before he becomes a man?

“What a weird thing to say,” you may be thinking. But, believe it or not, this issue is currently at the core of an international debate, the outcome of which is said to determine the moral nature of our society. So, you say, why don’t you fill me in on some of the main talking points of the debate? Well, here you go:

-When sex, or “conception” is had, something great and human is started, which can never be destroyed no matter what.

-A fetus is not autonomous, and is therefore not actually a human being.

-A fetus is disposable as long as it doesn’t have a soul (these take about six months to develop and are very hard to test for).

-A fetus is not a human being until it has learned articulated language.

Actually, in my opinion, this whole thing is crazy. How can anyone tell what makes a human being? I sure can’t. Neither can most people, which is why many people avoid the topic, whenever it comes up. It seems like the people who you actually always see talking about the subject on TV or wherever either claim to deeply respect all human life while supporting or instigating bloody wars, racism, or the death penalty or justify abortion by setting different points in time when a fetus becomes a human. If someone were to go around telling mothers whether their child is human or not, they would probably offend a lot of people. And that’s the point. When women have an abortion, they don’t think about whether the child is human or not, because, honestly, that’s not the issue.

Abortion is a painful experience, that no one involved should have to go through. Despite this, it has been done, in a sense, since humans first started having sex. Infanticide was the killing of children that could not be accomodated for by society. It almost always took place in the poorer classes. Abortion accomplishes essentially the same thing as infanticide, it just takes place earlier in the child’s development because of advances in science. And it still takes place among the same social classes, because in the present conditions, they often have no choice but to have an abortion. Really, due to the social conditions and poverty present in almost all parts of the world, abortion is a necessity. To deny the right to an abortion is to limit a woman’s control over her own body and to impress further hardships upon the impoverished women who have to make this decision.

However, to only campaign for the right to an abortion without demanding a society where the decision never has to be made is like chaining a man to a steamroller by his arm and giving him the right to cut it off to save himself. The Catholic Church currently refuses to allow the use of contraception and birth control in a society that doesn’t even provide the means for them. Yet they hope for a world in which humans have achieved a higher level of consciousness and a greater mastery of themselves. That world will never come about in a society that doesn’t permit the majority of its people to have children that pose no problems to their families and can grow up in a community that can provide for them.

A woman must have a right to choose, but she must also have choices.

Another Look at Stereotypes [4431]

A forceful example, but as I don’t think anyone really likes stereotypes, I think we should ask another question. How do stereotypes come about, and how can we deal with them?

That answer is much more complicated.

We tend to blame others for harboring stereotypes of us, but in many ways we are to blame ourselves.

Each of us has a unique human identity. Some of us are more or less alike in various ways, but each of us has things we share with everyone and things which set us apart from everyone.

But coming to grips with that identity is difficult and often painful, and high school is one of the most critical times in that process.

Our society propounds this spoken or unspoken list of stereotypes, for everything from Koreans to synchronized swimmers to math students. Whetever you are, there are probably stereotypes associated with it.

And I think, in an effort to assert our own identities, we sometimes buy into those stereotypes. It becomes easier to take on a few traits which don’t fit us than to explain more complicated traits that do.

To fit into whatever group we feel we deserve to be a part of, we start to assume stereotypes and homogenize.
And so in asserting our identity in fact we destroy it.

But it’s easy to say all that, and much harder to really be a unique and honest individual. There are many sides of myself about which I am not as open as I’d like, and may always be.

But ask yourself, when you’re choosing an activity or a fashion statement, or even a word to say: Am I doing this because it’s who I am, or because it’s who I think they want me to be?

And to that same end, make an effort not to categorize people. It’s easier with people you know well, but understand that people you don’t know are every bit as complicated and mulitfaceted.
That’s not ‘some nerd’; he has a name, friends, interests, quirks.
That’s not ‘some preppie’ or ‘some emo’. Those are people, like you in some ways, and different in others.

That’s difficult too, but well worth it. Suddenly you realize just how interesting and unique everyone is!

I hate stereotypes [1757]

I hate stereotypes,they are always oversimplified and used as a tool to oppress nonconformists. No, really, when was the last time you heard of a stereotype saying that life might be more complicated than something you can express in a five word sentence?

Now, say that you are in this imaginary cafe, and while you sit enjoying your coffee, you just happen to overhear two people talk: ”...And i’ve even heard he’s doing synchronized swimming” “Wow, he’s like, SO gay”, and then they both laugh.

And let’s just say you get infuriated enough to intervene, and to ask for a logical connection between a male participating in synchronized swimming and his sexual preference, you might just manage to squeeze out of them that in fact, there is no connection. In fact, you might even get as far as showing that there is nothing inherently wrong with either males participating in synchronized swimming or with gayness.

And then, you walk out of the cafe, having you lunch ruined by the depth of dumbness of society. So what? It’s not like it harms anyone…

A week later, you happen to bump into someone who seemed pretty devastated, and after a bit of interrogation, you get to the point of understanding that he used to be in the synchronized swimming team, but he quit. He does not exactly explain why he quited, but you already have a pretty clear idea. In order to console him, you invite him to a cup of coffee, you pay (you never did tell your mother about that time with those sticking dollar bills, now did you?).

This person is not alone. Almost every teenager diverging from the norm is pressured to go one of two ways: They can either accept the stereotype fully, or return to “normality”. It might seem odd to most people, but you need to remember the power of assumption. People who see someone flunking in school, will assume that they will be criminals and are doing drugs, and that assumption radiates toward the person the he’s supposed to be that. So, in a way, stereotypes create reality, instead of it being the other way around.

As you enter the cafe, you notice the two people from last week, and they seemed to be preoccupied with planning a party, and soon enough you guest joins in: “should we invite John Doe?” “No, he’s like some super-genius dork” “yeah, your’e right”.

None of them notice as you gloomily leave the cafe. People never learn.