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> Education is not a competition

Jessica Berget
Opinions Editor

 

ur education system has a lot of

flaws, but none as nonsensical as
the bell curve grading system. Not only
does this method of distributing grades
fail to accurately evaluate students’
learning processes, it turns education
and learning into a contest, a “battle
royale” for the top grades. Grading
someone on how they learn by giving
them a letter is already a ridiculous
concept, but distributing the letter

grades on a bell curve makes zero sense.

I believe this goes against everything
learning is about and all that education
holds sacred, and any professors who
still believe this method of grading
legitimately helps students learn should
have their teaching license revoked.

In case the name doesn’t give

it away, grading on a bell curve is a
method of evaluation based on the
belief that letter grades in a class
ought to be distributed on a bell
curve—meaning that no matter how
well you do on an assignment or a
test, only a certain number of students
will get A’s and B’s and the rest of the
students are stuck with C’s, which is
not always an accurate representation
of a students work and progress.

There are many professors who
foster this grading system because they
believe that if you want to get a good
grade in their class, you have to work
extra hard for it, but isn’t that what
getting a good grade entails anyway?
Answer: Yes, it is, and every student
already knows and struggles with this,
so why make it even more difficult?

By turning good grades into a
competition, the professors who use this
system are only making it harder for

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students who have trouble with school
to get better grades, because they will
be perpetually stuck in the C grade
category with no room for them to learn
from their mistakes and grow. Even if
these students improve significantly by
their own standards, if they don’t do
exceptionally well compared to the other
students, they will only ever get C’s.
Most of these professors also use
this bell curve to create extra pressure
and competition between their students
to be one of the top students in the class.
It also gives a sense of elitism because
getting an A ina class that has this
grading system is practically impossible
unless you already get straight A’s.
Generally, in this system of
evaluation, it is the same people who are
at the top, the middle, and the bottom
of the class for the entire semester.
And, if you happen to do poorly on an
assignment, your grade will fall hard.

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Illustration by Cristina Spano via ‘The New York Times’

This is not because the system works,
but because the system makes it hard
for them to work their way up and
improve. Even if every student does a
grade A job on an assignment, only a
select few will be deemed worthy of
the grade. This is not at all an accurate
representation of students’ work.

I believe learning and education
is about how much you can improve
yourself and your grades based on
your own standards and level. There
is also room to grow and learn from
your mistakes because you never stop
learning, and this system of grading does
not represent that, nor does it celebrate
student’s educational achievements by
any means. It could even deter some
students from trying their best in school
because the competitiveness of getting
a decent grade is too great. The bell
curve is not an accurate evaluation of
learning, so stop pretending that it is.

Wrapping up my new clothes 1s unnecessary

  

Photo by Analyn Cuarto

> It’s pretty, but wasteful

Katie Czenczek
Staff Writer

 

used to love when clothing stores would
wrap my newly purchased items in
tissue paper. It felt like a gift for myself
and somehow justified the expensive
t-shirt I bought from a high-end clothing
store. Maybe it’s because now I try to
be less wasteful, or if I’m being more
environmentally-friendly to make up for
the fact that I still eat meat. Either way,
the fancy little tissue paper that I used to
love has now become my greatest enemy.
Yes, for the most part it is only expensive
clothing and lingerie stores that tend
to wrap clothes before putting them
in shopping bags, but it is still a major
problem.

Ijust don’t get it. What is the point of
wrapping clothes if I already know what’s
in the bag? Is the whole purpose of it in the
hopes that I'll forget about my new jacket
in the bag so I get a nice surprise when I
get home? I’ve had retail employees look
shocked when I ask them not to wrap my
new clothes, or ask for no bag at all. One
of them even replied, “Really? Are you
absolutely sure?” Yes, Jill, lam 100 per cent
sure.

I believe that this speaks volumes
about our culture. We live in a society
where every bag, take-out box, and yes,
clothing store wrapping paper gets a single
use and then is chucked out the second

we get home. The majority of these items
do not get disposed of properly and end
up in landfills, which eventually trickle
into the ocean. If Finding Nemo was made
more accurately, Dorey and Marlin would
be swimming around in our plastic bags,
straws, and every other item that we use
once and then toss.

T have less qualms about shopping
bags and take-out boxes than I do clothing
store tissue paper. Everyone’s been ina
situation where you completely forget your
reusable shopping bag. Unless you have
eight arms, there really is no way for you
to be able to hold your weeks’ worth of
groceries without a bag. Wrapping paper,
on the other hand, is only there to be
pretty.

Let’s take Victoria’s Secret as a case
study. There are over 1,500 Victoria’s Secret
stores worldwide, all of which wrap every
single piece of underwear, lingerie, and
intimate wear that is purchased. Although
they use paper, which in theory should be
recyclable, most of it does not get disposed
of properly. Would it not be better to just
do away with wrapping paper in clothing
store bags all together? It’s a waste of time
for employees trying to get through a huge
lineup while having to perfectly wrap every
item and it is bad for the environment.

If stores just stopped unnecessarily
wrapping clothes, they would save more
money that they waste on this wrapping
paper, reduce line up wait times, and the
kicker; fewer trees would die for the sake of

pretty paper.