- How do students in general adapt to the transitions of the school schedules?
- Without school, how will everything turn out to be? Will it be hard for people to communicate, and is hard to gather the similar perspective to view the world or life in general? Or before school exists, how do people live? Will parents play the role as teachers?
- What makes the youth to believe in these stories, even we doubt about it, question it, we all just live in a world of unknown. If it is impossible to know the ultimate truth about the world, why certain format or structure are so valuable in the society. Does it really make sense or truth does not matter ultimately?
- Why adults are the only ones who can teach legitimately?
- I think school has to be with trust a lot and kids from young (blank piece of paper) to teenage, then young adult are all train to believe in the "stories" that their teachers taught them. Even they doubt and are skeptical about it, where do they go from that if figuring out the ultimate truth seems to be an impossible miracle? Why didn't the students come up with their own rules of doing math? Instead of following the convenience of "1+1=2", why didn't we make up something that we wanted, so is easier for us? Not saying to abandon the history, but perhaps we should revised it wisely?
- School often receives massive of respect from people (especially the elders, parents), and usually when people bring it up, or happen to be an educational person, it seems like they have a higher status. Why do people base knowledge on this? Why school is all about popular, rumors, friendship, grades, respect, discipline, books, smart...etc. Is the basic structure of theme of school similar to the society?
- People who goes to school every day like zombies, often times don’t really think or be aware of what they are doing. Such as rushing to class, but doing nothing particular interested, just knowing consciously that is necessary. Or going to gym, all of a sudden the next minute sitting down doing math. We will never do something that is so unusual like this during the weekend or break. Living in general should has a format I believed, but I think the “school portion” of it play a super weird role in our lives.
- I went to school in China from Kindergarten to 6th grade, and I am always the youngest one in class, because I never gone to Pre-K like others. So I was always behind, and never have a strong basics background. It feels like building lego, if you do not know some basics, you can't move on the next grade and learn more difficult things. Especially now, I am still aware that I think slow compare to the others, either I born with it, or is being shaped to think differently than the others since I was little. Personally, I do believe without a strong basic did impact my life A LOT.
- Why the math in the U.S. seems to be so easy? My math is horrible in China, never understand it and always question why without an answer that satisfies me. But when I came to the U.S., it's a piece of cake through middle school to high school, things seems to be easier to understand (not just giving lessons through books like China, but with some others ways to really understand why is this, why is that. Until I learn calculus, is the first time I struggle doing math (why’s that?)
- Before coming to SOF, never imagine I will have a good grade because is my first time going to a school that speaks complete English. But surprisingly, it worked out okay for me and I only get 80 once throughout the 4 years of high school. But in terms of feeling, I never understand my grades. Sometimes I even think that I do not deserve it? But either way, my parents never ask me for my report card, everything regarding school I would say is pretty independent and self-motivated.
One aspect : Age affects the way I look, act, and feel at school
My feelings about school changed a lot especially when I got older. I do not hate school as much as I used to be when I was a kid, but to be honest, deep inside my heart school is never the choice if I get to choose. Just like having breaks between months/weeks, people are always excited either from a transition or having something different. I don't really know why or know how to analyze these emotions towards school, but after so many years of hating school, I come to a conclusion that I learned how to adapt to the school system without complaints. Looking back at this 11 and half year of attending school (probably more than that), it looks like a training of behaviors. It trains people how to be certain ways, and it is not all about learning the material. But also learning how to accept and overcome things that come up in lives depending on situation.
I think school is not as bad as it is all the time, sometimes having massive of work is not just stressful, but also challenging in terms of due date. But I do enjoy these stresses, and it really trains me how to organize my time and challenge myself to do vary of things at the same time. Regardless of what the assignments are, I do see my future as having many things to do just like these assignments (perhaps even more complicated). They all come at the same time, and I might not even have someone to push me to get it done, which will make me slack off. So looking at school as a metaphor of something else, I think it helps me to handle it pretty easily. It is also a way to get me motivated and not complain about school but enjoy. Sometimes the subjects are really not that interesting, but often times I train myself to still get motivated by not asking why or the meaning of leaning it, or not question whether is useful or not. All these techniques did help me a lot personally to get over with school every day, and I do feel more connected to the subjects.
In terms of grades, it is something that I believe what most people is concern with. For me, it doesn’t mean a lot unless I feel like I did accomplish something during the process of getting them. I would say many times I do not understand them, or maybe I should put it this way, I do not think I deserve them. Ever since I came to the United States, the feeling of accomplishing something in order to get the number grade is rare. When I said accomplishments, I meant going through some sort of struggles through emotions, the work at school...etc. Many of the times I feel like some teachers gave grades because of impressions, and not based on my improvements. But 12th grade I would say is the most challenging year for me in SOF, every grade that I received is understandable and I know I deserved them regardless it is high or low. For me to feel accomplish, is really to learn something and get stuck then figure it out by myself with the help of the lessons. But mostly, the level of challenging matters a lot to me especially in SOF, since I been doing easy math for 2 and a half year while my sister who’s 1 years younger than me already learn something way harder.
When I was little, I lived under the pressure of being "tools" for my mom to compare with other kids. I heard a lot of the phrase like "if someone else can do it, you can do it too" or "what is your rating at school, was it the top 10". (My grandpa would even pay us as a reward for getting high grades or some awards!) These pressure towards grades being put into my mind at least for ten years, and it seems like going to school is all about GRADES. But as I transit to middle school and high school, parents have different expectations. My mom starts to say something like "try your best". Perhaps as the grades goes higher, my mom feels she has no control over it, and by then she never asked me for grades. (maybe keep a constant high grades for a long period of time would earn some trust over parents?)
I don't know if this is right or wrong in terms of not sharing grades with my parents, but I think grades should be self motivated, not really to get it to show it to the parents. As growing up from sophomore to senior year, many of the times when I get my progress report, I barely show it to my parents and it work out okay for my situation. Even I show it to her, she has no comments. Also, whether the grade is high or low, to me is just a number to self reflect on how well I did for that quarter and see if it matches with my progress of accomplishing certain things. If I were going back 3 or 5 years, grade is definitely something that I will struggle and care about the most. However, as getting older, it doesn't mean that much to me. I am sure is not because of my parent's reaction towards it, not because the similar grades through high school years. My guess was something else matters more than these "numbers" that does not exceeds 100.
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