Why you fail at school~ (and why crossmarking is pointless)

Hey faggots, not everyone gets straight A's, sometimes you may study your vagina out and you still wont get that perfect mark. Why? well read on

Obviously, in order to achieve the elusive 99.95 or even the Lilliputian 99.90 or even those A+ SACS, we’re going to have to study? That is a given. We’re going to have to dedicate long, inordinate amounts of life-draining hours so that perhaps we won’t have to spend the rest of our lives flipping burgers at Mac Donald’s mindlessly repeating the mantra, “Would you like fries with that?” However, after years of experience, I’ve decided that the key to success relies not only on personal effort but the skilful maintenance of relationships with your teachers.

Theoretically, whenever you get your result, your score for a certain test, prac or sac. You have deserved that score. These sorts of tests are designed to reflect the amount of time you have dedicated towards the task. Hence, if you score a high mark, you have probably studied and vice-versa. However, this situation is often not the case. People do not necessarily receive marks that are proportionate to the effort they make. This is where the dilemma arises. For Science subjects, there is really no room for complaint, as the answers are practically set in stone. However, for Humanities subjects, which require extended essays, the result one receives is highly contingent on the individual who marks the paper. So how do we solve the inherent subjectivity of essay-marking? Well sit back, relax, put on some Michael Buble and open up your minds to the reasons why perhaps you aren’t achieving the marks you should be.

In what is supposedly a fair education system, we would like to hope that we receive the mark that we deserve. However, although teachers may attempt to be “professional” and mark the paper free of any bias, they will fail time and time again due to the fact that they cannot control their intrinsic impulses. Their memories of their previous relationship with you and perhaps even of themselves will inevitably affect their interpretation of that particular essay. If you act like a brat in class and continually make smart-alec remarks whilst simultaneously deface the tables by drawing lewd genitalia, (however artistic it may be), what do you think the teacher’s impression of you will be?

Teachers have difficult jobs, they’re overworked, underpaid and any sort of satisfaction they have is mainly derived from the sense of fulfillment they receive when students are conscientious and appreciative. The monetary rewards are hardly motivation enough for them to drag themselves to school day in, day out and to tolerate a students’ unwanted disrespect. Consequently, when a stressed out Mr or Mrs X trawls through the reams of essays on a late Saturday night and eventually come to your paper, what would be the first thing that comes to his or her mind? Would they be cognizant of the hours of study you have dedicated towards the preparation of the exam, or instead envisage the memories of you terrorizing their class? The teacher would surely feel reluctant to award you a high mark simply because he/she does not want to give you that satisfaction. This concept doesn’t even have to be this explicit. The teacher doesn’t even have to hate you. If you are one of those “goodie two shoes” who doesn’t utter a word in class, what do you think the teacher’s memory of you would be? Diddly squat! Thus, when it comes to that fateful evening when they mark your paper, their lack of memory of you may ultimately downgrade your rightful mark.

Do you see how easy it is for individuals to be subtly influenced by their perception of you? We can apply this same principle to a student who may perhaps be highly sociable, endearing and slightly subservient. Even if the paper is littered with grammatical gimmicks, vulgar vocabulary and malicious mistakes, the teacher may ignore these errors because they are literally “blinded” by the charismatic sycophantism and so reward the student’s flattery by awarding the magic A+ and in turn be the biased individual he/she swore not to be.

Now the Education Department in its infinite wisdom attempts to control a certain degree of this bias through the implementation of the cross-marking system. Theoretically, this strategy makes sense. A different person marking such papers has no memories of any students, which inevitably creates a bias-free, impartial environment where everyone can hopefully achieve their desired mark. However, much like many political ideologies, the practice has far less utopian results. In fact, few people realize how fruitless, pointless and time consuming cross-marking really is. Although it is intended to counter the subjectivity of subtle human prejudices, there are some pertinent flaws in its application. After Teacher A has marked your work and hands it over to Teacher B, do you really think that the latter is going to question this colleague’s designated mark for you? No way! Because questioning the initial teacher’s correction is undermining his or her teaching and assessing skills. Such criticisms are a direct attack on the teacher’s ability hence paving the way for conflict. What teacher would risk their relationships and dispute over something as trivial as a simple grade? Furthermore, the work that is cross-marked becomes pock-marked with a myriad of annotations made by the previous teacher. These flinch-inducing squiggles more or less act as direct guides which shape and prevents the subsequent marker from developing independent views and irrevocably forcing him or her to adopt the previous marker’s viewpoint. So cross-marking is clearly not the safety net it professes to be.

Is there an equitable solution? Why yes! We should dismantle this heavily flawed system and replace all the examiners with one supreme, omniscient and unbiased arbiter who marks every test, every SAC, anything that can be gradable. Of course no such individual exists. No such program will ever occur because its completely unrealistic.

Undoubtedly, the system that decides our future is consistently failing due to the subjectivity of humans. Even something as miniscule as one’s handwriting can dictate the overall score of the essay. But, this system is the best thing we have. Ultimately, no matter what anyone does, we cannot control human bias. Ridding teachers of their intrinsic emotions would deprive them of the very feelings that make them human. We don’t want robots after all. Consequently, the only solution we really have is doling out buckets of fulsome obsequiousness. We have to ensure our illustrious educators have a favorable perception of us. We must flash adoring grins, engage in some pointless small talk, carry around their books and continually fuel their ravenous egos. Whatever it takes. We must build upon their positive impression of us. We must literally force their memories of us to be so favorable that when it comes to Judgement Day, we have all the ammunition we need to ensure we are awarded that magic A+

It is rather frightening that our future is so heavily reliant on the emotions and memories of certain individuals. What’s even more scary is that we noble students may have to be forced to act in a lowly and sycophantic manner to achieve our goals. However, your dignity is a very small price to pay for a potentially high result. So swallow your pride and do whatever is necessary, the future allows only two types of people to exist in the world, those that know how to fish and those that wish they could fish. Its much easier being the former.