A very startling concept stormed upon me today. It actually happened during English class. My teacher passed back our essays and that's when it hit me...should a letter grade determine my happiness?
You know those people who seem like they're never happy? And never will be happy, at least in front of your face (does the word "Diva" come to mind)? Well, my worst dream is not about rats chewing off the skin of my fragile facade, or losing precious articles to an angry Mother Nature. My worst fear is quite possibly the very notion that I will never be happy, and I mean over-the-top jubilant, nor be tantalized by the pure element that is excitement. And I am afraid my nightmare may be coming true.
You see, my essay wasn't bad, far from it, actually. So, I should be happy, right? That she said "You should be very proud of this effort [exclamation point]". But as I'm sifting through the paper, all I see are spacial white walls, rows of black ink, and only the occasional check mark, as if to say the page has been noted. It just makes me wonder whether my teacher actually read my essay or whether she skimmed through it, saw the length, a few good diction and give it a "hippy hi oh".
Never have I ever...saw so few corrections...and saw points being taken off for not italicizing. It's just as if the grading is based on a technical scale, not on a fluid, lucid essay.
If the idea of grading is so orthodox and medieval, then do grade-point averages matter? Do SATs matter? And lastly, and most frightening of all, do college admission letters matter? What do our grades say about us? Does the rigor show through? Or are some of us victims to a corrupt system of minute homework and free weekends?
There is no perfect world, but I wouldn't be the first one to admit it. I have to, though, understand that the time and place we navigate through is a sea of realism.
Sometimes, I'd wish we'd sail far away and efface the worries of this man-made, artificial concept called The Grading System. Do grades determine success? Or is it the simple hand of will that lifts aspirations and projects them into reality?
I am large, I contain multitudes. And sometimes, amidst the changing of the tides of my various emotions and beliefs, a part of me attempts to crawl to the dunes of my exterior, wishing and wondering if this is the limit at which happiness stands still.
