Thursday, Oct. 08, 2009
exams bring out the worst in people. discuss.
Pride. It's such a common failing, one I had hoped to escape, but it seems to find me even here, in that (this!) most ideal land of dreams.
Some girl just cried outside my door because she got 77% in an MCQ test. It's not great, but 76% is the average, so it's not like she flunked. And if she does better on the next 3 tests this result won't even be counted. Still, she cried.
Another case: some guy in my Japanese class got his test back and-- I think he did very badly. I could tell, by the number of red marks and corrections, but only because I had a glance at it before he oh so surreptitiously covered it with his hand. You know, the furtive hand-cover, the shamefaced attempt to deny your failure to the rest of the world. I know, I've done it before. In those seconds I could tell: he wasn't used to it, the absence of that familiar sense of accomplishment.
My point is, if your self-worth is so tightly enmeshed with your grades what will you do if for once -- and more than once it will occur -- they slip? And fall and crash to the bottom. Grades are numbers, letters, some marks someone wrote to show how much they think you've learned. Not the real thing at all.
So- disappointed I am, somewhat. I'd hoped to leave it all behind in RJ, but perhaps in retrospect it's even worse here. In RJ nearly everyone has had some taste of failure; the competition ensures it. (Except for those at the very very top... maybe? Or are they smart enough to realise their fallibility?) But here, most people were the smartest kids in high school; for many this is the first time they get a feel of being at the bottom.
Ah well. I'm guilty of being somewhat fixated on grades as well, but I'm hoping to change that. (Doing well helps relieve that anxiety as well HAHA)
written at 11:31 pm
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