Western Washington University has this nifty program called Blackboard through which students can have access to documents used in class and such. Some teachers post grades on this program. Until recently, it used to show your grade for individual assignments as well as a comparison to the average score. This comparison to the average was helpful in showing me if I did well or poorly. For example, if I got a B- on a test, I didn't feel so badly if the average was a C, but if the average was a B+, I would not feel so great.
Within the last few months, Blackboard has changed dramatically, and I was surprised and rather upset to find that our grades are no loner compared to the class average. How am I supposed to know if I did well or not?! Then I thought, wait. My best should be compared to ME, not other people. And then I wondered where this obsession with comparing myself to other people came from.
I thought back to my previous schooling and found the answer. When I was in late elementary school and all throughout middle school, students would pass their papers to a fellow classmate to grade. The teacher would read off the answers out of the grade book while someone else was responsible for grading someone else's assignment. Then, to save time, no doubt, the teacher would move to his/her computer. One by one, he/she would call out students' names. Whoever graded that person's paper would call out that person's grade in front of the class.
The issue was first created by having our answers seen by another person. What if you messed up and looked like a fool? Well, being obsessive about grades, I often did very well on my assignments, so I usually didn't have much to fear. But because I was known as the smart person of the class, it was always a huge deal when someone else got a better grade. Of course everybody knew if they got a better grade than me because our grades were shouted across the classroom daily. Even from my friends, I would receive a slap in the face if I did worse than anybody. Doing better than me was a huge accomplishment for other people, and they made sure they let me know how pleased they were to be better than the smart girl. The situation worsened in 8th grade when my friend from Alabama moved to McCleary and joined my class. He was clearly smarter than me (than I?), but I worked much harder, and I spent my 8th grade year trying to be better than him, and everybody knew the competition I had. My bad grades were always rubbed in my face.
Due to those experiences in my early schooling, I have continued to compare myself to other people constantly. So perhaps this lack of class average on Blackboard is a step in the right direction. But darn it, McCleary, you really screwed me up.
Love,
Elie
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
Various Babblings That Deserve Far Better Articulation
I don’t talk about my brother very much, mostly because we don’t have very much in common. In short:
My brother is a Marine, currently stationed in Afghanistan, with a home, wife, and dogs (I think three) in Arizona. I’m a comparatively yuppie college kid studying music in the Pacific Northwest.
He likes music that a lot of normal people his age like, ie Sublime, mainstream rock, country, hip-hop, etc. I think. I haven’t talked to him about music in awhile. I like music that’s often bizarre for the sake of being bizarre.
My brother likes big trucks driving around in the mud and going really fast. I like wimpy little hybrid cars that can do little more than get around town (if any I have to like any cars at all).
My brother’s in the military. I’m essentially a pacifist.
Even on the psychological level, I’m really introverted and passive, while my brother is definitely extroverted and active.
Other than the fact that we are brothers, we look like brothers, and our voices sound the same over the phone (which my grandma never fails to mention when I talk to her), it’s hard to find anything in common between my brother and me. But our parents are the same, we grew up together; we are family. Still, I rarely talk to him anymore, not because I don’t care about him, but because I’m caught up in my own little world, and I figure he’s caught up in his own little world, and I figure we won’t have much to talk about anyways, and we won’t really see eye-to-eye on much.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this. Maybe I don’t appreciate my family enough. Maybe I don’t really “get” family. Probably both. But no, I do appreciate my family; I’m just very bad at showing my appreciation. Whenever anyone else talks about their family and how close they are, my mind is boggled a little bit. I can’t imagine actually being “close” to my family, mostly because my dad is so alienating and my extended family is even more different than the way I even think.
Family in general is just something of an anomaly to me, which is probably one of the many reasons I have absolutely no desire to have one. Why don’t I understand it? How did I end up this way, when my dad often expresses how family is “numero uno”? My dad is such a strange person, and I doubt I’ll ever actually understand him. Likewise, I doubt he’ll ever actually understand me.
Ugh. Life. I can’t wrap my mind around it. Hence, I throw these thoughts out the window and just try to make the most of it on my own.
Anyways, back to my original purpose for writing this, I think: my brother, Carl, is in Afghanistan, where people kill one another over religious and nationalist and tribal bullshit. I can’t imagine what it’s like knowing that a group of people outside my bed want to kill me and everyone around me. He chose this life, yes, but no one should have to experience that. War is absolute crap. Yes, I “support our troops,” because I want them to come home where they belong, my brother included. You don’t have to support “missions” and wars to be patriotic.
I love America. There are many worse places. But I’ll be damned if this place couldn’t be better, starting with our leaders’ general gung-ho attitude about our place in this world.
Is war ever truly necessary? Of course. That’s the one thing I can’t stand about it. World War II. How many more lives would have ended if we didn’t fight back? How many lives ended because we fought back? What if we’d never needed to fight back? What if we’d fought back earlier? Would our view of the war be different? I don’t know. It scares me that we have the capability now to end all life on this planet in an instance, and I really, really hope we, as a species, don’t put that capability to use.
In other words: cherish your life, cherish your loved ones, cherish the people that you don’t really like at all. You never know when they’ll be gone. Be thankful for what you have. Happy early Independence Day.
--Jon
My brother is a Marine, currently stationed in Afghanistan, with a home, wife, and dogs (I think three) in Arizona. I’m a comparatively yuppie college kid studying music in the Pacific Northwest.
He likes music that a lot of normal people his age like, ie Sublime, mainstream rock, country, hip-hop, etc. I think. I haven’t talked to him about music in awhile. I like music that’s often bizarre for the sake of being bizarre.
My brother likes big trucks driving around in the mud and going really fast. I like wimpy little hybrid cars that can do little more than get around town (if any I have to like any cars at all).
My brother’s in the military. I’m essentially a pacifist.
Even on the psychological level, I’m really introverted and passive, while my brother is definitely extroverted and active.
Other than the fact that we are brothers, we look like brothers, and our voices sound the same over the phone (which my grandma never fails to mention when I talk to her), it’s hard to find anything in common between my brother and me. But our parents are the same, we grew up together; we are family. Still, I rarely talk to him anymore, not because I don’t care about him, but because I’m caught up in my own little world, and I figure he’s caught up in his own little world, and I figure we won’t have much to talk about anyways, and we won’t really see eye-to-eye on much.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this. Maybe I don’t appreciate my family enough. Maybe I don’t really “get” family. Probably both. But no, I do appreciate my family; I’m just very bad at showing my appreciation. Whenever anyone else talks about their family and how close they are, my mind is boggled a little bit. I can’t imagine actually being “close” to my family, mostly because my dad is so alienating and my extended family is even more different than the way I even think.
Family in general is just something of an anomaly to me, which is probably one of the many reasons I have absolutely no desire to have one. Why don’t I understand it? How did I end up this way, when my dad often expresses how family is “numero uno”? My dad is such a strange person, and I doubt I’ll ever actually understand him. Likewise, I doubt he’ll ever actually understand me.
Ugh. Life. I can’t wrap my mind around it. Hence, I throw these thoughts out the window and just try to make the most of it on my own.
Anyways, back to my original purpose for writing this, I think: my brother, Carl, is in Afghanistan, where people kill one another over religious and nationalist and tribal bullshit. I can’t imagine what it’s like knowing that a group of people outside my bed want to kill me and everyone around me. He chose this life, yes, but no one should have to experience that. War is absolute crap. Yes, I “support our troops,” because I want them to come home where they belong, my brother included. You don’t have to support “missions” and wars to be patriotic.
I love America. There are many worse places. But I’ll be damned if this place couldn’t be better, starting with our leaders’ general gung-ho attitude about our place in this world.
Is war ever truly necessary? Of course. That’s the one thing I can’t stand about it. World War II. How many more lives would have ended if we didn’t fight back? How many lives ended because we fought back? What if we’d never needed to fight back? What if we’d fought back earlier? Would our view of the war be different? I don’t know. It scares me that we have the capability now to end all life on this planet in an instance, and I really, really hope we, as a species, don’t put that capability to use.
In other words: cherish your life, cherish your loved ones, cherish the people that you don’t really like at all. You never know when they’ll be gone. Be thankful for what you have. Happy early Independence Day.
--Jon
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