> This is what my Ancient History II professor told me when my group and I got our final group project essay handed out.
What a terrible, hack of a teacher. If you've ever said something like that to a student, quit your job. Those people are the reason academia is such a miserable experience for so many.
I'm not trying to test whether the best student knows the material; I'm trying to test whether all the students know the material.
As the person who regularly carried such groups when I was in high school and college, I was especially sensitive to this.
So I'd say that you shouldn't say that if you're relying on your own feelings and impressions to judge facts not in evidence, because your instincts may be wrong. They may even be racist or sexist (i.e. something that the person you're maligning has to deal with constantly), instead of in this case when it was just a weakness for ass-kissers.
Too many times somebody else got a good grade from my work. I don't begrudge them the grade because I don't care when other people get nice things for free (I love it when me or my friends get nice things for free), but they certainly had no knowledge in what had been taught in the class they just got a B in.
> Those people are the reason academia is such a miserable experience for so many.
School isn't a therapy session or entertainment. If it's a miserable experience and you come out smart, it's 1000x better than if its a wonderful experience and you come out dumb.
That's exactly my point. That teacher didn't have any facts, they just decided someone was a slacker based on vibes and used that bias to single them out. And presumably would go on to add systems to allow them to persecute others they deem to be slackers.
> School isn't a therapy session or entertainment. If it's a miserable experience and you come out smart, it's 1000x better than if its a wonderful experience and you come out dumb.
As someone who gets told he's smart somewhat regularly by his peers, and had a school mandated therapist because they thought he was a suicide risk, I believe that's a statement that needs a citation.
In any case they're not mutually exclusive, you can have an education system that works without grinding people down into lifelong anxiety disorders.
According to the story (which seemed to lack a "trunk"), the proposed system was individual essays.
It almost reads like the author climbed the tree to shake its branches and content himself with whatever dropped. Which in this case is fine by me.
I'm not saying it has to be sunshine and rainbows all the time, but if you actually genuinely hate it then that's a worse outcome than being a blank slate. A blank slate can pick up a book at 25 and go follow their interest down the rabbit hole, maybe even go to uni. If you had a bad first experience then good luck unlearning all of it and getting back to the point where you're excited about art history or whatever. I also don't believe you can find something miserable the entire time and come out smarter for it.