It sucks in a lot of places, but sometimes I've been frustrated recently because I feel like going to class is a waste of time. (Why do I always seem to express my frustrated feelings?). My cousin said once that in Indonesia, people cheat because it's easy, and that her schoolmates would come up with really clever ways of cheating. So far from what I've seen, what she's said is true. It's a little bizarre for me because even my seniors say, "If you can cheat, just do it. On the quizzes it's fine, as long as it's not the final." It's a little different in America, where you can get expelled very quickly for plagiarism or cheating.
Personally I think the whole mess of grading, testing, and quizzing is faulty because in the real world there will always be access to resources and information. I also think that forcing students to take "closed book" exams is inefficient. I know I don't have a basis for these statements; it's just some of my observations from being out and about in my little world. Instead of testing students on memorized facts we ought to run simulations, give oral exams, and develop labs for students to demonstrate their knowledge. Simulations and labs would take the information the student learned and apply it to a real-life settings. Skills are more valuable than knowledge. I could memorize the entire periodic table but if I don't know what to do with it or what its implications are, then it's useless.
Oral exams or presentations would, of course, put a higher toll on the teacher, but it has dual benefit: frst, the teacher can see just how well the student knows the information, and second, if we start oral exams from a young-enough age, all students can get proper practice speaking in front of an audience. If we normalize presentation and speech-delivering instead of making it into some sort of DUN DUN DUN IT'S HELL TIME, students will likely feel much more confident. As they say, "the true sign that you've studied properly is when you can teach what you've learned to someone else."
Back to cheating. Maybe it's a little frustrating for me. Grades matter in the long run because they're what companies look at while evaluating your application, and since everyone is boosting their own GPA shouldn't I boost mine too? All's fair in love and war, they say, and isn't the academic competition war? But I'm a bit hesitant now to go into morals and justice and philosophy so let's just stay away from that and keep this as musings.
Anyways education was supposed to be about learning and instead it's about the score and about grades and about ranking. Which is abysmal and very, very disheartening. Maybe one day I'll be the president of a nation and push education reform bills through. That's what I would do as president: EDUCATION REFORM. I'm not sure how different governments work though. This is just musing but I think Indonesia would be much better off if it 1) eliminated the cheating and plagiarism epidemic and 2) taught students how to think creatively and analytically. Students are just spouting off hastily-memorized and useless information to perform well and of course everyone is obsessed with performance and so nothing ever changes.
-------
I've been thinking about the semester 6 internship in Germany and I really hope I'll get to go there or to Amsterdam. It would be very nice to experience winter again, because I really miss cold weather and sweaters and hot chocolate. Hot chocolate just isn't the same in warm weather, you know?
Should I be frustrated if people at school don't know anything about me? Probably not! It's my fault for not being more open. I'll introduce myself a little more here so at least you, dear reader, can have the benefit of knowing about me. I absolutely adore poetry. I'm being published in the next edition of Murmur! And I recently sent about 16 of my poems back to America and they will probably not be accepted but at least I can dream. Why are all of my dreams blooming so violently? I've been using the word "blooming" a lot lately. I love to eat french fries. I will eat absolutely any potato product, whether it be french fries, baked potatoes, curly fries, potato chips, hash browns, etc. Anything. Feed me potatoes and I will devote a portion of my adoring love to you.
I'm really just on this blog today as a cursory measure. See, I don't know if anyone actually reads my blog. If you care enough to know what I've been doing for the past few days and weeks, read on! Someone took the time to screenshot my LINE post and share it to Facebook (you can see it here), where it got 300+ shares. I'm very honored and a bit apprehensive because lots of people added me and discussed with me about the issue. I have dreams of being monumentally, stupendously important in the world so I guess I'll have to get used to the negative comments and appreciate them. I've been rather busy working on that novel but I've resigned myself to the likely possibility I won't finish it in time for NaNoWriMo, what with my compulsive editing skills and all.
I've also been grumpy recently. I had a minor spat with my dear friend Mocha and I thought the world was ending because I rely on him quite a bit. We were talking every day and I got used to that. Humans, after all, don't like change.
I've been eyeing the Staedtler Fineliners and Zebra Mildliners and other stationery, such as the Muji notebooks (if not Hobonichi but for some reason there are no Hobonichi vendors here in sweet Indonesia). I've been craving sate ayam recently. And I've been listening to a lot of NAIF. I hope you have a brilliant day today, full of love and joy and absolute wonder.
Cheers,
RIN
a study in the varied beauties and tragedies of an ordinary girl's life