The Wicked Witch
Of The East
You are more than the sum of your grades.
Thursday, October 9, 2014 / 8:28 PM ♥
Whenever the exam season – or the release of grades – rolls around the corner, constant reminders regarding the fatally limiting nature of academic results begin to surface exponentially.
You are more than the sum of your grades.
There are many things in life that are worth more than your test score.
Grades are important – but what matters more is character.
Indeed, as hackneyed as these phrases may sound, they do carry a certain degree of truth. But they ought not become excuses for students to neglect the significance of exams or to invest less effort in their studies.
After this morning's devotion and an insightful conversation with a friend, it occurred to me that perhaps the reason behind the perpetual need to downplay the importance of academic scores in results-oriented, grades-obsessed Singapore is our misplacement of its actual value. Hyper-focused on the slant that "perfect scores" indicate intellectual aptitude, superior capability, and boundless potential, the nature of this system often fails spotlight other innate virtues that are indirectly revealed.
On the surface, grades are merely quasi-accurate quantifiable means to calibrate potential. However, the upward chase for perfection by these numerical standards do, in fact, unleash and nurture a wider host of positive attributes as well.
For one, the seeds of Resilience are wordlessly planted in the student who decides to give Fitzgerald yet another shot, despite having multiple commentaries deemed inadequate and hurled back with "lacks analysis", "lots of generalization" and "poor expression" stabbed all over them in red. A student's ability to see the red-inked comments as fuel to the Green Light burning at the end of a successful education will spur them forward; a grade ought to do nothing more than drive you onward to a bright "orgastic future".
Likewise, beyond backbreaking athletics and practice-makes-perfect drills, there is no better way to cultivate iron Discipline than through sitting one's 'never-attaining-more-than-20%-on-a-maths-paper' self down, and confronting the sums that don't add up and the numbers that remain complex. The development of a functioning internal locus of control begins when the coordinates of 'what you detest doing' forms a straight line with 'what you have to do'.
And above all, in the process of pursuing a good grade, the Courage garnered to approach and grapple with the unknown may end up forming the core of a positive attitude that allows for an unassailable start in the real world. After all, great learners are as frightened of new challenges as others. But the tenacity to learn could perhaps be the simple differentiating factor between the student who struggles to overcome their initial lack of understanding of macroeconomic goals, and the student who grows up to contribute to soaring global Unemployment.
It is easy to argue that the qualities of resilience, discipline, courage and more can be attained as effectively through other activities; or even through academics SANS an uncompromising grading curve. But if you can't change it, why not embrace it? What more, the acquisition of these skills and virtues under the pressure of grades – ironically – provides the very tools that propels one to success! Hence, it is probably more productive to perceive test scores as a tangible representations of dynamic goals, or even new levels of potential to unleash. Therein, the pressure from the barometer of academic achievement itself is converted to a source of motivation instead.
Ultimately, grades will always remain as a bunch of numbers (eventually forgotten). The greatest failure, hence, lies not in the rigidity and supposed blindness of this system that demarcates success based on a stipulated numerical boundary. The failure lies within one's inability to see beyond the preoccupation with those pathetic digits that hold no value more than what is self-prescribed.
Progress
Monday, October 6, 2014 / 3:04 AM ♥
Life has been moving on gradually, rapidly. There are so many things I feel compelled to write about, but no. (I'd get to it soon. Or maybe I won't. I don't know.) My computer died a couple days back. It just gave up on me the way we give up so easily day after day. So I'm stuck with using my brother's old laptop where the battery life is flickering at a pathetic 13% seemingly threatening to give up on me any minute as well. And what turns me off more to an even larger degree (in relation to writing) is the fact that I don't have my Live Essential writer app thing on this computer. Annoys me to such a large extent - no one understands. Truth be told, I haven't used this built-in blogger platform in ages. It looks weird; all I remember is its unreliability and user-unfriendliness (which is proving to be somewhat true). Actually my annoyance towards the lack of Live Essential was primarily rekindled just minutes ago upon having read a bunch of old posts, where I touched on how sacred and essential Live Essential is to me.
Speaking of old posts. It is a strange experience reading over what younger me wrote a mere one, two years ago. And as I said above, life IS moving on and things are changing - have changed - for better or for worse. But I cannot lie - life has been good to be of late. I am happy, I think. I am. At least, I think I am comfortable; but not too comfortable. (sidenote: I am happy at this point, therefore I am sad. I am sad to leave AC, I genuinely am.)
Actually, I lie. "I cannot lie". Well, that is a lie. I am a compulsive liar. But that is another topic, another issue to deal with on another more contemplatively, brooding day.
I was talking about the past, and about old posts. (seems like I never outgrew the horrendous habit of digression.) Oddly, fragments of years gone by resurfaced recently over suppers and conversations. I didn't expect it to. But likewise, I didn't expect that it didn't hurt to talk about those things and people. At least, not to an unbearable degree. And although fleeting thoughts lingered at the back of my mind through the last vestiges of long-drawn nights and lethargic gaps in lazy-afternoons, it didn't taunt me as badly (anymore) as what I would have expected.
Time heals. I guess, you have to give credit to whoever came up with that. Because its validity is rather undeniable - somewhat. Months back, had I experienced the state of mind I am in now, I would perhaps have deemed it be a state of jaded numbness. Numb to the point of nonchalance, of apathy. A troubled mind is quick to perceive any moments of emotional respite negatively - a momentarily death. But the truth is, I still feel. But I feel better.
In retrospect, it is interesting to think - how much of the pain is, in fact, the work of my own mind? Self-inflicted? An elaborate lie? I like to believe in the theory that people get addicted to pain, or to sadness. Or for that matter, to any thing hyper-extreme. There is a certain thrill of indulging in such. Or perhaps, it follows the idea that people favor familiarity and alleged comfort. Why would you choose to feel better when you are so comfortable with feeling bad? Sorrow is depressing attractive.
While on this topic of feelings. There was something else I discovered tonight in my old posts that left me feeling more somber than that of dusty emotional baggage. I realised Emma Yong's fiance had eventually removed the youtube videos of her performances that he once uploaded; in particular, the one where she sang 'When All The Tears Have Dried'. Over the course of the past two years, I have periodically gone back to these videos. Just to re-experience the incredible amount of beauty and grace encapsulated in electronic waves and pixels and recorded audio that never fails to retain its richness even after ten thousand replays. The sense of beauty and grace that transcends time and space and life.
I've always admired Emma Yong deeply. From a distance, no doubt. And that is probably why her passing never struck me as gravely as it would have because all this while, it's felt like nothing has changed. You know, it is just the way you see a person in their medium - and she's there, and she's real - but then you go about your life for the next couple of months without direct contact with them. But they are still there, and they are still real. And suddenly she is not. I guess the removal of her presence from even the most detached of degrees - an online portal - simply serves to cement the fact that she is gone.
But life moves on. "Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead". The most underrated quote from The Great Gatsby, in my opinion.
I guess in some ways, this is where the practical side of me surfaces. Lately, I've discussed my over-pragmatism with different groups of friends as well. (Mental note to rethink that in greater detail). And it does seem the ideal time to confront such defining traits of mine, especially with uni apps underway. (Mental note no.2 to think and rethink and re-rethink about future prospects).
It is funny to look back and see how I was so preoccupied with 'Future Prospects' at a point where it didn't quite matter. as much. And now, when coming face to face with the fast-approaching steam engine of future-past it is so easy to feign ignorance to the preeminent train-wreck. I guess it won't matter as much if your life comprised of multiple, tiny train-wreaks; the virgin collision on a pristine automobile probably hurts much more, tenfold maybe twenty.
We get back our prelim results on Friday. A train wreck is characterized by the massive physical destruction is leaves in its wake, as well as the unexpectedness of its impact. Is a train-wreck really a wreck if you've already seen it coming? It is at times hard to deny that the ends justify the means. Especially whilst learning to be more of a 'its-the-process-that-counts' type of person.
Okay, I shall close this before the pseudophilosophizing goes too far (the train has long derailed).
Oh! Before it slips my mind - I just finished reading Kate Shindle's book "Being Miss America - Behind the Rhine Stone Curtain" this week and I absolutely loved it! Brutally honest and poignantly witty. She's such a beautiful person, both inside and out. Shall write her a lovely note sometime real soon (get on it!). I simply adore Kate Shindle!
--
I am glad - and very surprised - that some writing was done tonight. The traditional pen-and-journal writing has failed once again, as always. I'd get back to it ... soon soon.
"When at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter." - Sylvia Plath
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Profile
Welcome to my little space of neurotic ramblings and hilariously futile attempts to cope with my feelings like a mature individual should. You may laugh/empathize (preferably the latter).
I use the semi-colon too much; am I even using it correctly?
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You are more than the sum of your grades.
Thursday, October 9, 2014 / 8:28 PM ♥
Whenever the exam season – or the release of grades – rolls around the corner, constant reminders regarding the fatally limiting nature of academic results begin to surface exponentially.
You are more than the sum of your grades.
There are many things in life that are worth more than your test score.
Grades are important – but what matters more is character.
Indeed, as hackneyed as these phrases may sound, they do carry a certain degree of truth. But they ought not become excuses for students to neglect the significance of exams or to invest less effort in their studies.
After this morning's devotion and an insightful conversation with a friend, it occurred to me that perhaps the reason behind the perpetual need to downplay the importance of academic scores in results-oriented, grades-obsessed Singapore is our misplacement of its actual value. Hyper-focused on the slant that "perfect scores" indicate intellectual aptitude, superior capability, and boundless potential, the nature of this system often fails spotlight other innate virtues that are indirectly revealed.
On the surface, grades are merely quasi-accurate quantifiable means to calibrate potential. However, the upward chase for perfection by these numerical standards do, in fact, unleash and nurture a wider host of positive attributes as well.
For one, the seeds of Resilience are wordlessly planted in the student who decides to give Fitzgerald yet another shot, despite having multiple commentaries deemed inadequate and hurled back with "lacks analysis", "lots of generalization" and "poor expression" stabbed all over them in red. A student's ability to see the red-inked comments as fuel to the Green Light burning at the end of a successful education will spur them forward; a grade ought to do nothing more than drive you onward to a bright "orgastic future".
Likewise, beyond backbreaking athletics and practice-makes-perfect drills, there is no better way to cultivate iron Discipline than through sitting one's 'never-attaining-more-than-20%-on-a-maths-paper' self down, and confronting the sums that don't add up and the numbers that remain complex. The development of a functioning internal locus of control begins when the coordinates of 'what you detest doing' forms a straight line with 'what you have to do'.
And above all, in the process of pursuing a good grade, the Courage garnered to approach and grapple with the unknown may end up forming the core of a positive attitude that allows for an unassailable start in the real world. After all, great learners are as frightened of new challenges as others. But the tenacity to learn could perhaps be the simple differentiating factor between the student who struggles to overcome their initial lack of understanding of macroeconomic goals, and the student who grows up to contribute to soaring global Unemployment.
It is easy to argue that the qualities of resilience, discipline, courage and more can be attained as effectively through other activities; or even through academics SANS an uncompromising grading curve. But if you can't change it, why not embrace it? What more, the acquisition of these skills and virtues under the pressure of grades – ironically – provides the very tools that propels one to success! Hence, it is probably more productive to perceive test scores as a tangible representations of dynamic goals, or even new levels of potential to unleash. Therein, the pressure from the barometer of academic achievement itself is converted to a source of motivation instead.
Ultimately, grades will always remain as a bunch of numbers (eventually forgotten). The greatest failure, hence, lies not in the rigidity and supposed blindness of this system that demarcates success based on a stipulated numerical boundary. The failure lies within one's inability to see beyond the preoccupation with those pathetic digits that hold no value more than what is self-prescribed.
Progress
Monday, October 6, 2014 / 3:04 AM ♥
Life has been moving on gradually, rapidly. There are so many things I feel compelled to write about, but no. (I'd get to it soon. Or maybe I won't. I don't know.) My computer died a couple days back. It just gave up on me the way we give up so easily day after day. So I'm stuck with using my brother's old laptop where the battery life is flickering at a pathetic 13% seemingly threatening to give up on me any minute as well. And what turns me off more to an even larger degree (in relation to writing) is the fact that I don't have my Live Essential writer app thing on this computer. Annoys me to such a large extent - no one understands. Truth be told, I haven't used this built-in blogger platform in ages. It looks weird; all I remember is its unreliability and user-unfriendliness (which is proving to be somewhat true). Actually my annoyance towards the lack of Live Essential was primarily rekindled just minutes ago upon having read a bunch of old posts, where I touched on how sacred and essential Live Essential is to me.
Speaking of old posts. It is a strange experience reading over what younger me wrote a mere one, two years ago. And as I said above, life IS moving on and things are changing - have changed - for better or for worse. But I cannot lie - life has been good to be of late. I am happy, I think. I am. At least, I think I am comfortable; but not too comfortable. (sidenote: I am happy at this point, therefore I am sad. I am sad to leave AC, I genuinely am.)
Actually, I lie. "I cannot lie". Well, that is a lie. I am a compulsive liar. But that is another topic, another issue to deal with on another more contemplatively, brooding day.
I was talking about the past, and about old posts. (seems like I never outgrew the horrendous habit of digression.) Oddly, fragments of years gone by resurfaced recently over suppers and conversations. I didn't expect it to. But likewise, I didn't expect that it didn't hurt to talk about those things and people. At least, not to an unbearable degree. And although fleeting thoughts lingered at the back of my mind through the last vestiges of long-drawn nights and lethargic gaps in lazy-afternoons, it didn't taunt me as badly (anymore) as what I would have expected.
Time heals. I guess, you have to give credit to whoever came up with that. Because its validity is rather undeniable - somewhat. Months back, had I experienced the state of mind I am in now, I would perhaps have deemed it be a state of jaded numbness. Numb to the point of nonchalance, of apathy. A troubled mind is quick to perceive any moments of emotional respite negatively - a momentarily death. But the truth is, I still feel. But I feel better.
In retrospect, it is interesting to think - how much of the pain is, in fact, the work of my own mind? Self-inflicted? An elaborate lie? I like to believe in the theory that people get addicted to pain, or to sadness. Or for that matter, to any thing hyper-extreme. There is a certain thrill of indulging in such. Or perhaps, it follows the idea that people favor familiarity and alleged comfort. Why would you choose to feel better when you are so comfortable with feeling bad? Sorrow is depressing attractive.
While on this topic of feelings. There was something else I discovered tonight in my old posts that left me feeling more somber than that of dusty emotional baggage. I realised Emma Yong's fiance had eventually removed the youtube videos of her performances that he once uploaded; in particular, the one where she sang 'When All The Tears Have Dried'. Over the course of the past two years, I have periodically gone back to these videos. Just to re-experience the incredible amount of beauty and grace encapsulated in electronic waves and pixels and recorded audio that never fails to retain its richness even after ten thousand replays. The sense of beauty and grace that transcends time and space and life.
I've always admired Emma Yong deeply. From a distance, no doubt. And that is probably why her passing never struck me as gravely as it would have because all this while, it's felt like nothing has changed. You know, it is just the way you see a person in their medium - and she's there, and she's real - but then you go about your life for the next couple of months without direct contact with them. But they are still there, and they are still real. And suddenly she is not. I guess the removal of her presence from even the most detached of degrees - an online portal - simply serves to cement the fact that she is gone.
But life moves on. "Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead". The most underrated quote from The Great Gatsby, in my opinion.
I guess in some ways, this is where the practical side of me surfaces. Lately, I've discussed my over-pragmatism with different groups of friends as well. (Mental note to rethink that in greater detail). And it does seem the ideal time to confront such defining traits of mine, especially with uni apps underway. (Mental note no.2 to think and rethink and re-rethink about future prospects).
It is funny to look back and see how I was so preoccupied with 'Future Prospects' at a point where it didn't quite matter. as much. And now, when coming face to face with the fast-approaching steam engine of future-past it is so easy to feign ignorance to the preeminent train-wreck. I guess it won't matter as much if your life comprised of multiple, tiny train-wreaks; the virgin collision on a pristine automobile probably hurts much more, tenfold maybe twenty.
We get back our prelim results on Friday. A train wreck is characterized by the massive physical destruction is leaves in its wake, as well as the unexpectedness of its impact. Is a train-wreck really a wreck if you've already seen it coming? It is at times hard to deny that the ends justify the means. Especially whilst learning to be more of a 'its-the-process-that-counts' type of person.
Okay, I shall close this before the pseudophilosophizing goes too far (the train has long derailed).
Oh! Before it slips my mind - I just finished reading Kate Shindle's book "Being Miss America - Behind the Rhine Stone Curtain" this week and I absolutely loved it! Brutally honest and poignantly witty. She's such a beautiful person, both inside and out. Shall write her a lovely note sometime real soon (get on it!). I simply adore Kate Shindle!
--
I am glad - and very surprised - that some writing was done tonight. The traditional pen-and-journal writing has failed once again, as always. I'd get back to it ... soon soon.
"When at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter." - Sylvia Plath
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