 |
|
|
|
|
Wed, May 21, 2008
Jakarta Post, ANN
|
|
|
|
|
|
Making the Grades
|
|
|
iv>Some of us used to live and die with the issuance of report cards each day. Would it be our own personal D-day? Ultimately, though, does it really matter.
In high school, I was a straight C student. I realize it's a feeble attempt at greatness, but at least I tried.
Now don't get me wrong: I liked to learn new things, I just couldn't stand the system. I didn't understand what it was for, or why I had to stuff all this information into my head which at the time didn't seem to make a difference, any difference, in my life. Back then, we were taught to listen more than ask; memorize more than analyze; obey more than rationalize.
Let's take the subject of history for example. The textbook we used was rife with dates, names and places.
Descriptions of events were very brief and scattered. What my history teacher loved to do was to write the information already provided in the textbook on the blackboard. She wrote each date, name and place in large, bold letters. Throughout the hour, she kept pointing from a date to a name to a place, giving very little connection to how such and such event or person helped shape the world as we knew it then.
At the end of the subject period, she asked, "Do you understand?"
In unison, we said, "Yes, Ma'am."
A week later, she decided to give us a quiz. Let me just say that cramming data without putting it all in context is almost as impossible as learning the names of the extras in a megamovie like the Titanic.
Who's that guy standing in the back holding the violin? We don't care. It's not important. But if the story had been explained in a way that put the guy with a violin in his hand as a heroic character who managed to continue playing music as the larger-than-life boat sank into the Atlantic - then, we may try to learn his name. Nevertheless, in the absence of context, we tend to rely on our trusted friends - cheat sheets.
As we all know, cheat sheets are the reason, 10 years after we graduated high school, that we draw a blank when someone asks our opinion about the political climate. They're the reason we laugh nervously when someone makes a sarcastic joke about serious global issues. They're also the reason why we keep saying communism is bad, democracy is good and that socialism is what we do when we throw a dinner party for eight.
Worse still, cheat sheets are the reason we graduated.
You would be surprised (or maybe not) to know that most undergraduate students in this country have never heard of "the Holocaust"; while many graduate students still think of Africa as a country. Hmm, hmm, hmm?
I'm not any better, of course. Seven years ago, I couldn't tell the difference between the Greeks and the Jews. I even found myself at the mercy of Time Magazine's 2002 Almanac when I accidentally got dragged into a lengthy discussion regarding Yugoslavia's break-up. When 9/11 happened, that was the first time I ever heard of Osama Bin Laden. Until a few months ago, I thought "oblivion" was an actual state. In all likelihood, I would never get past the first few minutes of Jeopardy.
So I ask myself this: Did I owe my ignorance to all the Cs I received in high school? Was I not paying enough attention in class? Or was I born ignorant?
Then I discovered that even the person who graduated first in my school - who had been the teacher's pet - knows less than I do. Not because she's got less gray matter or curiosity than I have (I think being a straight A student all her life proves exactly the opposite) but because she has always been taught to believe that the learning process stops when one finishes school.
Much of my high school years had less to do with studies than the actual process of growing up and coping with the everyday problems of being a teenager. Most of the things I know now I had to catch up on through a series of humiliating and awkward events once I graduated high school, after the painful realization that memorizing the date of Lenin's death and the place of his birth is no way to understand Leninism or his influence upon Russia.
Also, you have to ask yourself this every time you watch students marching on city streets demanding justice for all and shouting "we the people" every two or three minutes: how much do they really know about their own country?
I, for one, still can't place Flores on a map. I don't know which province is the number one producer of soybeans or pepper (I was even surprised to learn Indonesia is the world's largest exporter of tropical timber.) I can probably look up the exact number of Indonesia's per-capita income, but don't even try to ask me what a garbage man lives on.
In the end, school is not about the grades you get or who you please, it's about how you process the information you receive and place it in the greater context outside of the four classroom walls. Don't just listen, ask; don't memorize, analyze; obey to a certain extent what the teachers want or need you to do but, every once in a while, it's good to rationalize your actions and stand up for yourself.
I believe it was the great Confucius who said, "Mere study without thought is useless, but thought without study is dangerous." For both teachers and students, it's important to remember that when push comes to shove all the A grades in the world will only get you so far in life before you hit a wall and realize: it's not the grade, it's the thinking process that matters.
This story was first published in The Jakarta Post on Apr 29, 2008.
|
|
| |
|
STORY INDEX
|
|
|
|
|
|
