Arcane
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“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
- Mark Twain
How often in your life do you think you’ll need to draw upon your extensive knowledge of the inner workings of quantum physics? Your profound insight into the life and works of Venetian High Renaissance painter Titian Vecellio? Perhaps one day you will engage in a scholarly and most illuminating conversation concerning the lingering impact of the medieval crusades upon the society today…
But probably not.
So the question you must ask yourself now is… what does knowing that “x=73y^-8i” tell me? And how is this supposed to help me in my later life?
The sad truth is that modern day schooling isn’t so much concentrating on what may be actually really useful to us, but on cramming our heads with enough academic and fancy-looking trash that colleges and parents can’t tell the difference.
Today’s minds and our educational system have been corrupted by something I like to call the Grade over Gain Syndrome, and from the looks of it, it’s something that’s here to stay.
But what is this Grade over Gain Syndrome exactly?
Little is known about this bizarre mental disorder, but it is in fact widespread in our world today, and is extremely catching. The virus is particularly notorious for targeting the minds of adults, especially parents, and expert research has shown that it can in fact be a hereditary disease (though not always). Luckily for us, the virus is non-lethal - though certainly not harmless!
How do I know if I have it?
Well, this is exactly the problem. The thing is that the GoG disorder is a very subtle disease - its symptoms are so quiet and so common that many people disregard them completely. The most familiar symptom however, present in 95% of GoG sufferers, is the tendency to become overly obsessed with grades and academic work, even when it is completely and utterly pointless. This kind of behavior then often leads to pressure and over-exhaustion from work, and can even cause rifts between suffers and their children, who are nearly always the secondary victims of GoG.
Oh my god, what do I do if I have GoG?
Sadly, there is currently no cure for GoG except extensive rehabilitation to change the patient’s mindset, and even this is a very tentative form of treatment, seeing as stubbornness and refusal-to-see-things-any-other-way frequently accompany the GoG disorder (see also: On Human Nature). Preventing it is currently the only solution we can offer. Expert advice to the populace is to keep an open mind - never let yourself get tied down by mindless convention, and if you suspect your family or friends have caught the GoG virus, contact your family doctor immediately.
Putting that aside… Why do people feel so strongly about grades? What are they really but tickets to a good college where the process is simply repeated? Grades are nothing without gain, meaningless. Information goes in one ear and out the other; students forget everything they’ve learned after the final exams. This is not because they’re stupid, or because they have BAD ATTITUDES, but because THEY DON’T CARE. You can’t teach someone something unless they care. You can’t force people to like something they don’t like. But that is exactly what many people nowadays fail to realize. And so our “education” continues to decline into the depths of just-because, and school becomes no more than a chore. Don’t let it happen to you. Don’t let it happen to your children. I beg you, no matter what happens, always remember this: that schooling should never be separate from education.
- Mark Twain
How often in your life do you think you’ll need to draw upon your extensive knowledge of the inner workings of quantum physics? Your profound insight into the life and works of Venetian High Renaissance painter Titian Vecellio? Perhaps one day you will engage in a scholarly and most illuminating conversation concerning the lingering impact of the medieval crusades upon the society today…
But probably not.
So the question you must ask yourself now is… what does knowing that “x=73y^-8i” tell me? And how is this supposed to help me in my later life?
The sad truth is that modern day schooling isn’t so much concentrating on what may be actually really useful to us, but on cramming our heads with enough academic and fancy-looking trash that colleges and parents can’t tell the difference.
Today’s minds and our educational system have been corrupted by something I like to call the Grade over Gain Syndrome, and from the looks of it, it’s something that’s here to stay.
But what is this Grade over Gain Syndrome exactly?
Little is known about this bizarre mental disorder, but it is in fact widespread in our world today, and is extremely catching. The virus is particularly notorious for targeting the minds of adults, especially parents, and expert research has shown that it can in fact be a hereditary disease (though not always). Luckily for us, the virus is non-lethal - though certainly not harmless!
How do I know if I have it?
Well, this is exactly the problem. The thing is that the GoG disorder is a very subtle disease - its symptoms are so quiet and so common that many people disregard them completely. The most familiar symptom however, present in 95% of GoG sufferers, is the tendency to become overly obsessed with grades and academic work, even when it is completely and utterly pointless. This kind of behavior then often leads to pressure and over-exhaustion from work, and can even cause rifts between suffers and their children, who are nearly always the secondary victims of GoG.
Oh my god, what do I do if I have GoG?
Sadly, there is currently no cure for GoG except extensive rehabilitation to change the patient’s mindset, and even this is a very tentative form of treatment, seeing as stubbornness and refusal-to-see-things-any-other-way frequently accompany the GoG disorder (see also: On Human Nature). Preventing it is currently the only solution we can offer. Expert advice to the populace is to keep an open mind - never let yourself get tied down by mindless convention, and if you suspect your family or friends have caught the GoG virus, contact your family doctor immediately.
Putting that aside… Why do people feel so strongly about grades? What are they really but tickets to a good college where the process is simply repeated? Grades are nothing without gain, meaningless. Information goes in one ear and out the other; students forget everything they’ve learned after the final exams. This is not because they’re stupid, or because they have BAD ATTITUDES, but because THEY DON’T CARE. You can’t teach someone something unless they care. You can’t force people to like something they don’t like. But that is exactly what many people nowadays fail to realize. And so our “education” continues to decline into the depths of just-because, and school becomes no more than a chore. Don’t let it happen to you. Don’t let it happen to your children. I beg you, no matter what happens, always remember this: that schooling should never be separate from education.