Re: The Loaded Dog: HSC exams - Sydney Morning Herald
I do agree that the landscape has changed since then, academically. I'm not saying that the HSC is the root of all evil in life, but it sends out the message of competitiveness is always the right thing to do to get ahead. Should you try your hardest? Yes you should. Everyone should care about the HSC. What I do dislike however is the ATAR, it's a completely horrible way to enter adulthood, with a single number. My post was specifically more about how people either judge people by their ATARs, or just say ''who cares''. Neither of these attitudes help a bit.
Ok explain how non-competitiveness will lead you anywhere in life? We live in a capitalistic society dog-eat-dog world if you will. Only the top are the ones who survive (not literally but for the rest of the post I will refer to surviving as having a well-balanced financial and economically viable life, I will define this as what people generally aim for in the world).
And as such since we live in a capitalistic society competition is
everything from business to finding a job. If an employer has to pick an employee between you and 5 other people and the 6 of you compete with each other in order to look the best and show that they are the best for the job. This is an example of millions that I can give. In order to maintain a business you need to be competitively viable, USYD only want the most hard working people to study Law and the ATAR is a measurement of that. ATAR does not measure intelligence but rather your ability to put in hard work. And as such unis will take ATAR to measure how willing you are (and smart I guess) to be able to do Law because in order to do Law you need to be pretty damn good.
Moreover your life is not determined by your ATAR but rather makes your first years of adulthood a lot easier. Sure it doesnt help to have a bad attitude about it and to point figures like that, its disgusting how arrogant people can be. But guess what? Thats how life is, you meet people of a range of different personalities from peculiar to plain arrogant. Your ideoloy is that the perfect world will have no one that will brag about their ATAR or their job or whatever.
Guess what, some people find it hard to not brag about 1 hard working year of their life and that is the simple fact about it. Sure if you point fingers and say haha you have a bad ATAR then you are being stupid
but the simple fact is that there are people like that and in one way or another ATAR they will find some way to beat on you
"If you havent learnt anything worthwile during the last 6 years of your schooling and you are typecasted as a dumb idiot then they have a point." Fock you.
*shrugs*
Whatever you think mate, Im simply stating my opinion there and I know many people will agree with me but they are too nice to show you the real world.
You find competition so ''beautiful'' probably because it benefits you. And don't you dare lecture me about how the world treats me, because you have no idea what its like to experience a Manic Depressive Disorder episode during your exams. To read about Buddhism's ideas about gratitude, and to only be bullied. You know nothing about fairness.
I dont think its fair that you have pointed this at me, are you sure Ive never been bullied in my life? Think Im some guy who has absolutely no problems in their life? And you bite at OTHER people for being arrogant?
I find it beautiful because it shows humans what they can achieve and it gives humans some sort of goal to beat, all in the name of advancement for humanity, all in the name of advancement of your own person financially, morally, etc etc.
The Bored of Studies caters to people with random disorders, go write a misadventure form or something if you really care about your ATAR. You read about Buddhist ideas of gratitude yet you learn nothing in the past 6 years of schooling, schooling children around the world will never see education, that will never even see proper food or clean water (yes Im pulling out that argument but it must be done). You read on Buddhist ideas about gratitude yet you whine about horrible your life is, despite how horrible other peoples lives are? You need to really appreciate what you have.
I know a lot about fairness because Im a fair guy to be honest. Fairness isnt feeding everyone what they want, fairness isnt socialism, fairness is giving everyone a fair go (at everything) and then laissez-faire (let everything be). If people treat you badly then its not fair on you, sure, but there are ways to combat this.
I don't want the world to be perfect, I want it to be fair, and if you do not want at least fairness or justice, I just can't understand you at all.
I told you about fairness already, you seem to think that fairness is having everyone ok with crappy marks in school. No, employers wont be happy with an unproductive person, and that unproductive person is unproductive because they learnt nothing in their years of schooling. And ATAR is a reflection of how hard you work, if you get a 50 ATAR it means you dont know how to work and hence you dont find a uni.
Competitiveness, mostly, is awful. It's negatives clearly outweigh the positive parts. The problem with the HSC is that everyone has to ''play this game'' whether they want to or not. The HSC suits you, so you love it. My opinions of the HSC, comes out of other peoples experiences. The scaling done by UAC sends out the message that science and maths are more valuable than the humanities and the creative arts.
From what your course aim is and the whole tone of your post I can say that you are passionate about the arts. Economics is the highest scaling non-maths/language/English course. And Economics is a humanity subject. Sure Visual Arts and Music dont scale high, and nor does Business or whatever you subjects you do. But in the end society only cares about the areas of academia that will directly affect them. Therefore the material sciences Physics, and Chemistry scale high, but what trumps them all are Economics, a humanity that gives great insight into how the world works.
And you cant accuse the scaling, its done on difficulty and performance of the cohort. So it just happens that Business gives easy tests because the real good stuff is covered in Economics etc etc. A maths subject scales the highest because its the hardest damn subject in all of academics (yes it is)
Sure maybe the HSC suits me but it only really suits me because I actually like school and the subjects Im doing.
But what really interests me is why you find Competitiveness so awful. I already referred to Competitiveness at the beginning of the post, but in reality competitiveness is what drives the world around. And no I dont say this because Im always the winner, in fact its the opposite, Im always on the opposite side of the good when it comes to competition. But Im glad that there is a 1st place to strive for because it allows me to improve and shape and hence advance my own mindset only because the competition gave me the motivation, the hunger for first allows me to improve myself.
I mean, look at your subjects. The last 6 years, of my education, has been just shallow preparation for the tests. The teachers who encouraged us to look at the world around us, critique it, are intelligent and I appreciate them. Not the ones that tell me to work on my ''exam technique''.
What I find frustrating is that the only things you find intelligent is critical analysis. Which is just plain wrong. Real intelligence does not mean being able to think differently, anyone can do that, you dont need to be smart to think differently to 'critique' the world. The teachers who teach you how to do the exam are the ones who are telling you how to get a good ATAR, rote learning is unfortunately essential so you can get away from this dull year of your life and move on with life.
And the most important thing for me is, and never has been, happiness. It's conviction, fairness, justice. Unlike you, I am not ignorant, if I think there is suffering, I'm going to say that there is suffering.
And a final note- it's not all right that a doctor is money driven. It means that they probably care less about their job. Doctors should be the type of person that you can tell anything to, not someone who is there simply for the money.
Justice is incredibly subjective unfortunately, your morals differ from mine and thats fine. Like I said before you dont know what fairness is. I am definitely not ignorant, I have been repeatedly asking for rebuttal to my statements. I do be stubborn in what arguments that I am defending but everyone is stubborn when they defend their point, but in no way am I ignorant.
Lol mate do you know how hard it is to become a doctor? Anyone who spends the 8 or so years studying then doing transfers then this and that, obviously cares about the achievement that they have gotten. Moreover the money driven doctors need to be able to keep their job while they are getting the money and hence they need to be adequate enough.
Ridiculous
. I'm just curious why choose to perpetuate it? A sense of gratitude to your parents? (not trying to sound antagonistic just curious)
