What I Hate

I hate when you're at school and people are constantly comparing grades with you. You feel pretty crappy when people deliberately point out that they have higher grades, but it also make you feel angry when you know that the only reason they have higher grades is because they cheat.

With the whole mentality that you won't get into college if you don't have a 4.0 gpa, students have lost there moral compass replacing it with an innovative mind. When I say "innovative mind" I mean an innovative mind for cheating. I've known people to place notes in their calculator cases, write answers on their erasers, even right notes on their legs in the holes of their jeans. There are even students that are so desperate that they will literally beg people for any hints on the next test. It's disconcerting and plain disgusting.

Our generation has become nothing more than a generation of cheaters. To those who actually do their work honestly, it is depressing to know that someone will always have a higher grade than you, not necessarily because they studied more, but because they cheated. Students have become too familiar with the mind set that "you got to do what is necessary." Necessary being cheating? I don't think so.

So to all the cheaters out there, you have made hard work seem meaningless, you have extinguished the concept of morality, and you have changed the world for the worst. Your actions do mean something and when you chose to act wrongly, they have harmful effects for everyone else.

Spanish Australes

Money - one of the most valued materials in the world. They can be used to determine elite social classes, to obtain needed nutrients, and even to buy desired materialistic goods. Unfortunately, they can also “buy” you a grade.  While it may seem that legitimate currency can provide you with power and success; in reality, counterfeit golden, crinkly, and miniature money comparable to monopoly money are much more valuable. 

Despite this somewhat humorous and foolish concept, a new system of giving fake money to those who participate verbally is now incorporated in numerous foreign language classes. The idea itself is reasonably idealistic. However, as most experiences demonstrate, we do not live in an idealistic world. Thus, this “idealistic” system proves to be more menacing and pressurizing than traditional grading. 

With this implementation, there are two major problems: people who indefinitely hog over all oral responses and those who merely steal the fake money. For every response, you are rewarded with a crinkled dollar. Subsequently, the amount of money you earn in relation to the student with the highest amount determines a good chunk of your grade. 

Although speaking is one of the fundamentals in learning a new language, does a teacher have to pressurize it into a contest among students? Furthermore, this doesn’t actually allow students to learn verbally in class, but instead fosters a contest of who can raise their hand the fastest. In addition, the teachers take a naïve stance on obtaining this illegitimate currency. A large container full of money is placed in the front of the class. You may come to the conclusion that the teacher would have some awareness of students taking the correct amount of currency. However, there is none what so ever. None. Instead, it seems that the teacher turns a cheek as students take ten times more the amount they have earned throughout the class, in hopes of avoiding any type of conflict. 

As a result, since everything is counted in relativity, the students who have cheated in their accumulation of fake bills have an inflated grade in participation, while those who did not cheat have a substandard, low grade. This type of money system is more of a test of character and moral against cheating, than it is of participation. However, the teacher will never know of this because they don’t take into account how much effort, work, or ethical behavior you put forth in class, only a overtly valued piece of crap. Foreign language teachers, take heed in this. Your stupid illegitimate bills are doing more harm than good.

Spanish Class

Spanish class. That is a discussion within itself. Do we really need to learn a language? According to my Spanish teacher, her class is the "make it or break it" factor of whether or not you'll get into college. Superb!

Learning a new language is beneficial in some ways, but to make everyone take a language is utterly ridiculous. Yes, many people enjoy learning a new language, but everyone is different (how cliche!). But people have different plans in their life. I could understand if one or two years of learning a language was required, but to go through all four years? Really...

I have regretted my decision to take Spanish for a while now. Spanish is a great language, but for me, I think I would enjoy Latin much more. But, guess what? According to my school counselors, changing your language will dock you down from college radars. So, now I'm forever stuck with Spanish with the mindset that if I change my language I will not get into college.

Here's my rundown of the problems with Spanish class (which I will definitely explain more in depth soon):

1. Teaching Style (directly correlates with the teacher, how ironic!)

• DREADED Australes (participation/money system - basically the one thing that characterizes the  curriculum of the class...gah) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_austral
• Citos

2. Pals

Why AP Lang Multiple Choice is...

Stupid. Yes, AP Lang Multiple Choice Questions are very stupid as well as pointless. What is the purpose of these questions? According to CollegeBoard

"An AP course in English Language and Composition engages students in becoming

skilled readers of prose written in a variety of rhetorical contexts, and in becoming

skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes."

Ok, I get the writing part of their description since AP Lang has definitely changed my writing for the better and the "skilled reader" concept is pretty plausible. In fact, we do so much contextualization you could call "rhetorical analysis" and "finding the meaning" a profession in our class. So, what's the problem?

The problem is how CollegeBoard is testing us is utter HOGWASH. The prompts that they provide to test our reading ability are quite frankly... BAD WRITING. These texts are unnecessarily ambiguous, which almost always diverts the reader to some nonsensical conclusion. Why would you not specify the subject of your writing? Is it so that you can have the reader spend ten minutes trying to figure out what you're trying to say or maybe have them come to ten different possible conclusions? If so, you are right on the mark because when you constantly refer to your subject as "they" it really does not get your point across since we don't know what you are referring too! Sure, ambiguity is great. Shakespeare does it all the time and he's one of the most renowned writers to all time. Unlike Shakespeare, these texts are ambiguous for really no reason. That's great that you have a duty to serve as Prime Minister (as in one of the prompts), but why do you need to be so ambiguous about it? At least Shakespeare had a reason...

In all honesty, it's similar to trying to decode a five year old's writing about his dog when all it says is "He likes to play in the green grass when the sun is out."

This is the usual reaction:

WHO IS "HE"? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY?

What we really should be asking is:

WHY DOES THIS MATTER? IF THE AUTHOR WAS STUPID ENOUGH TO NOT HAVE ANY IDEA OF WHAT HE/SHE WAS WRITING, WHY ARE WE TRYING TO READ AND ANALYZE IT?

Yes, reading comprehension is CRUCIAL to our education and I fully support that. But when everything is said and done, reading comprehension skills only are necessary to a certain extent. Why would you read a text that only talks about meadows when it's actually about Native Americans? There's a very definite line between comprehending writings that actually MEAN SOMETHING and then just comprehending writings that have minimal, if any, significance. Sure, you can criticize me by saying that every piece of writing has significance! But alas, some writings are just not worth reading and certainly not worth analyzing.

If I handed a paper to any of my teachers that didn't have a clear and evident meaning or purpose, they would rip it up to shreds with their deathly red felt tip pens with messages that say "what are you trying to say?" or "be more clear" and probably a big, fat "F" on the side. How fun!

So CollegeBoard, get some more meaningful prompts we can actually analyze instead of those pieces of garbage you call literature. Let's face it. They definitely aren't worth our time or your time for that matter. Furthermore, if English is not black and white, but different shades of grey, then please tell me why you are trying to make each question have only one definite answer. Your methods of testing our reading and writing abilities are in constant contradiction with the very nature of the English Language!

School?

As I go about the same routine, same classes, and same everything, I wonder what school has taught me so far. I guess, I've learned a lot of advanced: math, english, and science, not to mention the most incredible concepts in my elective classes.

But one thing that school has helped me thoroughly develop is cynicism, cynicism for the current school system.

Sure, school exposes the young mind to (for the most part) our full potential - satisfying our curiosity and enriching our development. But how can we effectively learn with all the problems that school or maybe more specifically - school teachers make? These aren't the types of problems that you're suppose to solve in order to get a better understanding of real world problems. These are problems that we as students have little to no control over. These are the flaws that the school system has created that may not seem like a big deal, but nevertheless lead us to the question: are we actually learning?