The effect of "not thinking"
Got a 68 for our quiz in Philosophy103 this afternoon. At first I was devastated; I don't think I've ever received anything close to a 70 before. Oh wait, I take it back; just last week I received a 65 in Business Writing class for forgetting to sign in my business letter. But Philosophy is something else. I thought I winged that quiz; in fact, I was the last person to finish my essay since I was making such a career out of it. But instead, I find out that my essay is no better than the rest of my second year classmates who also got 68's, 65's, and 60's.
Why must Philosophy always bite *ss?
Before handing us our pitiful scores, Atty. Solis delivered a litany on how NOT to answer a quiz in philosophy. Adda yadda yadda, "one-paragraph essays aren't enough to answer a philosophical question," blah blah blah "long answers pain my eyes"--bottom line is,there's just no pleasing the gods that are Philosophy instructors--like they're always finding potholes in your answers, taking every opportunity to ask "Why is this?" "What does this mean?" "How can you say so?"...sheesh. Anyway, after that, Atty. Nice said something that caused me to stop cursing my crappy score. Quoting Fr. Michael Moga (his former Philo prof and author of "Why are We Not Thinking?"), Atty. Nice asked us: "Will you be happy if I gave you a 95 instead?". Of course the usual answer would be "Heck yes! I'd take a 95 over,say, 68 any day! A 68 in your transcript is just like a zit on the verge of eruption--it's disgusting to look at and calls a lot of attention to itself!"
...I can't remember what he said next. Whatever that was, it made me feel better about my 68. Well, it didn't really make me feel better--it just made me realize that maybe I did deserve this score. I think Atty. Solis' point was that sometimes we need to get crappy scores to knock us off our comfort zones. And when we are rocked from our comfort zones, we can then "think"! And this "thinking" will then allow us to better ourselves!
Okay enough about that, it's making my head hurt. Right now I must compose a reflection paper on any of Pablo Neruda's poems.
Labels: school
posted by Adobobo @ 1:04:00 AM
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