3rd July 2018

Attitude scores

Attitude is everything.

There are two ways in which a person can judge you within a learning environment such as here at MAC. The obvious one is your grades, the grades which you earn through your efforts. Better grades, better student.., right? Hmm, not quite. Certain teachers or “educators” also like to take our attitudes into account, most of you may have experienced this first hand. In fact, all of you have.

Once a fortnight, both you and your parents receive an electronic file labeled “fortnightly report” from the school. I can’t speak for you guys but in my case, the parents usually get to it first. Then without even realizing it, my outer school activities and personal time have been cut down. “You need to do better at school, the numbers indicate that 3 or below means you’re not trying hard enough.” mind blown. You see before receiving this, your parents base your school efforts on the grades you are getting. Personally, I find this perfectly understandable and in most cases the normal. Obviously, if you’re receiving good results in assessments and exams then your killing it, getting through school one step at a time, bringing home them credits! Yeah Nah, not quite. In some schools, the teachers are given the power to make a personal opinion on how they believe the students are trying. Regardless of what the outcoming results are.

Let’s say you’re in Physics or OP or whatever, and the teacher makes a comment or a remark you were to disagree with. Do you question them? Maybe try add some valuable knowledge to the topic? I’m sure that some of you do. I believe you have the right to question, it is a school (Where we learn..). Can’t we learn through questioning our educators? But before you question, think about the power the educators have above you. There are two paths you can take. Listen and take in what they have to say and be seen as a wonderful student, 5’s all around. Question and explore the boundaries, you get hit with a 2. I see this as a disadvantage to the students learning capacities, out of fear we will hide inside our shells and rely on a handful of people to guide us through one of the most important stages of our lives. If we were to accept everything that we are taught passively, there could potentially be a detrimental effect on our critical thinking.

Throughout our history, mankind is full of examples of people who questioned established notions and challenged authority, and their contributions are recognized. Let’s take a step back to the 1700’s. Throughout the world, class systems were deeply buried in the soil of civilizations. Usually with the Roman church legitimizing the institution. Why should religion be so associated with a country’s political system? What if you aren’t religious? This is what many citizens disagreed with. Eventually, the people stood up for their beliefs and took action, revolutions were taking place resulting in true transformations of the social order. Who knows what type of world we’d be amongst if it weren’t for the ones who stood up for themselves.

Picture a world where people can rate each other from one to five stars for every interaction which they have with one another, much like a featured episode of Black Mirror for those of you which watch it. A rating system that would average a social status score and display it as a personal profile for everyone to view upon meeting you. Personally, I couldn’t imagine a worse society to be a part of. Individuals should have the opportunity to be unique, without the consequence of being viewed as a castaway. Not only could this affect your social life, but what if your average score restricted you from pursuing or obtaining some of your desires, such as a luxury apartment or the ability to travel wherever you wish.

In reality, this is in somewhat relatable. In school, you are closely watched for a fortnight before being given an average attitude score made up from the opinions of your teachers. This score is then accessible to the school and your parents, placing you in a position to be easily judged. This then restricts you from certain aspects of your life, in my case a passion for skiing. Unless I lift my attitude scores by being fake to who I am, I’m unable to spend as much time doing what I see as a form of education you can’t get in the classroom.

I’m not saying that students should do whatever they want whenever they want because that would obviously be anarchy, I just hold an opinion that teachers should value a student for who they are and work with us to obtain the most beneficial outcome, embrace uniqueness and not rank us in some system to influence others personal opinions. If you benefit from asking questions, then there’s probably at least 5 other people will also benefit from it, whether or not they realize it at that time.

And remember, attitude isn’t everything.

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Writing