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April’s random article
from the livid mind of mitxela
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Why am I buried beneath an infinite mound of homework? Why, why must I suffer pointless toils of schoolwork, within my so called "education" centre and then also my home?
I'd really like an answer to that. I really would.
When left to my own devices, I find it incredibly difficult to concentrate when the matter of homework reaches focus. Take right now - over a month ago my welsh teacher set a lovely essay task on the wonderfully original subject of "old people." I say wonderfully not in simply a sarcastic tone, but beyond that. For Pete's sake, we studied this matter last year. And now we're doing it again. It wouldn't be so bad for writing if we were *allowed* to express our true opinions, but that's seriously Cloud Nine. I mean it; her perception of old age is unexplainably stereotypical, however completely, and utterly, wrong. We cannot challenge the fact. Everything we write about old people, in no matter what situation, proves that all old fogies without exception are miserable, weak, lonely and spend their days stroking that cat, hoping that someone will come visit.
I know many people one might class as "old" and none of them fit this description. My view of old people, from experience, is that they're living it up. Travelling the world, visiting their relatives, most of them are quite computer literate. Even the very oldest person I know, with Arthritis, only 5% hearing and exceptionally revolting teeth keeps a very active life with a positive attitude and seemingly no regrets of the past.
That isn’t the point I’m making though. The point I am trying to convey is that of all the coursework I might ever gain marks upon, the creative task, I have been limited to something there is naught I may ever write about. Then there’s also the fact I’m writing in Welsh. This makes it more difficult because:
a) ‘tis not my first language
b) ‘tis not a language I am particularly familiar with for its uncommon vocabulary
c) ‘tis a language with the most unfortunate collection of obscure grammatical structures and so called mutations.
My resource for working within this strict boundary is no more than an online dictionary. Now, there’s our first problem, the fact that it has any interaction with a web browser and therefore Hypertext Markup which is, undoubtedly, a programming language. As soon as I visit a site, I forget everything. I begin to wonder on the construction of it all, how the script fetches its translations, how the margins have been most blatantly adjusted through CSS. Anything to distract me from the task. If you were to ask me why this dictionary is so important, I’d answer with the fact that every Welsh item I produce must first be written in English, and then painfully translated, for the reason that I simply cannot write in Welsh. I mean, I can write, but I can’t write. Take that last but one sentence, for example. Its structure, its vocabulary, and its varying length from the surrounding sentences just rolled off my tongue. I didn’t have to consciously plan the position of it, it’s simply how I would convey that message, and I’m sure this is the same for most people. In Welsh, however, this is not the case – I don’t have the same ability to throw my thoughts at the page and let the world hear them with uttermost clarity. My time is spent silently screaming at the paper for a position to intentionally place a metaphor, as the language just… doesn’t work in my head. I have nothing against the language, it’s only that I haven’t had the correct atmosphere of dialect for any length of time longer than one lesson, so my vocabulary just can’t live up to what I need.
Then we have the obscure advantage it has over actual education. If I may be up at my computer tapping away at the keyboard for any length of time, everyone around me has the same reaction; if I’m doing homework – a pointless task offering no health to my intellect whatsoever – then I’ll be left to tap onwards. If I’m programming, novelling, composing, or designing of any sort then away I’ll be, and straight to bed. Why should this dominate? The whole education system is pathetic, that’s what.
All my life I’ve been ahead of my year. It’s just been like that, but no one ever did anything about it. While in other countries – I hear – people move up and down classes depending on ability, here we most certainly do not. Sure, we have sets, so that you can be placed in order of ability over others at the same age, but when the best in the Set One of twelve-year-olds is better than the worst in the Set Five of sixteen-year-olds, nothing is done about it. For those better pupils, wouldn’t everyone appreciate it if they moved passed Set One and into the next year? It’s such a simple concept, that’s done elsewhere, but for the strangest reason fathomable, it’s not here.
It also is proven to ruin the attention of brighter pupils. I won’t go into detail, but when ninety percent of conversation is irrelevant, it really is hard to understand what needs to be heard.
So many nights I am up past midnight scribbling through my homework. It tires me, it lowers me, it destroys me. And then, then, after all I do, I get teachers actually complaining about me? Today I suffered the interrogation of one unsatisfied teacher claiming that the sixteen or so hours it took me to complete the task – that wasn’t even coursework – was “not putting enough effort in”. If this is how I get treated for trying my very, absolute best, I’d like to quit right now. But that means nothing at all! All eleven years I’ve sat through I’ve wanted to quit, in any way possible.
Education wise, our Government cannot govern. Ability wise, my school cannot teach. In any way possible, homework cannot offer any benefit to anyone, ever. My opinion, state your own.
My random article may now seem much less random than one might have expected. Fear not, as random simply refers to what is unexpected – and so to triumph in randomness I stood aback from the directly abstract content. Oh, and also there was the pressure of time – inflicted, naturally, by homework.
-mit
Author: mitxela
| This page was uploaded on 20/04/06
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