Sheer Randomness, followed by SCI Results

Recently, the science teachers decided to give us the results for our final test of this period of the school year. An exam considered to be quite important since it summarized nearly all we’ve done since the beginning of the year. After having told us our results they did something that perplexes me even now, two days after: they posted the results for most of the students for everyone to see on a board in a frequently used hallway. Supposedly it was because they were tired of people asking to check their grade. Because, as everyone knows, opening a binder requires herculean strength. Since they didn’t want everyone snooping to check out other people’s grades, they decided to place the result by the code associated with the student. Now this is the part where you can practically hear Adam Savage (co-host of the show Mythbusters) say: ‘‘Well there’s your problem!’’. The codes just happened to be in alphabetical order too...If you’re taking for the teachers (or just have some kind of grudge against me), you could come up with something along the lines of: ‘‘It’s not like they can tell in what order you are unless they know your family name’’. This would be true if we weren’t seated in alphabetical order in class. The class right across the hallway from the results.

I’m not saying everyone in our level can’t wait to find someone to tease because of a bad grade they got, but just by seeing that the first person on the list got something like 40%, it doesn’t take half a brain cell to tell it’s the guy who’s name is Aaron A. Aaronson. And yet I’m willing to bet if you ask for someone else’s grade, they’ll refuse you and accuse you of something like not respecting the privacy that the other students are entitled to. This would be coming from the people who openly display the results of the majority of the students out of pure sloth.

The good thing is, I’m sure none of the students of the grade above us will be able to decipher the results. I say decipher because as the lab rats of the educational reform, the way the bureaucrats decided to grade our work has turned into nonsensical jibber jabber. In one case they grade by percents going by bounds of 4 which translates to a letter with a sign. You can pass with a D+ nowadays. Call me nostalgic, but with the previous system we did not have these communication problems. The reform was a good concept that got applied and received in an appalling manner. The confusion with the grades is probably the reason people don’t retain them as well which causes the kind of situation we have now.

I hope you enjoyed those rather crude pictures of fruits and vegetables posted above. God knows that there’s nothing more hilarious than aubergine penguins...