Because Grades doesn't spell Smartness

Pieces from Edges
By Joel Aba
An Opinion Article
Published for the Golden Eagles
College of Business and Accountancy yearly publication
Negros Oriental State University


Learning: Redefined

Have you ever tried memorizing long sentences with the hope of putting answers to your enumeration-type test? Awful, isn’t it? But it could be much awful when you have finished memorizing everything, yet you have not actually learned what it’s all about.

It could be “utmost awful” if you do it for the sake of getting a grade.

In our university, even in our very own college, we students could have no other way but agree to this. In fact, I have even found myself guilty of such. We sometimes tend to memorize the words, but not it’s real meaning, not even the essence of why such words must be remembered.

But this manner of getting a grade has gone way deeper than just passing a subject. This has, in one way or another, destructively caused us to have a bound-to-be-fleeting knowledge of what the subject matter is all about.

A subject, if we define it, is one included in a curriculum and is not only any of the various courses of study in a school or college, but a body of learning. Learning, in the other hand is the acquisition of knowledge or skill. Therefore, trying to memorize everything discussed without properly understanding its real implication and purpose to us and memorizing merely to get a grade is virtually nonsense – or simply, meaninglessness.

But this truth does not extinguish the value of what memorizing brings us. Memorizing is good, and it is at its best, if and only if, associated with internalizing the facts printed or copied on our notebooks.

Just like how we learned our ABC, we have tried in pre-school memorizing all the 26 letters of the English alphabet. But memorizing alone is not the real essence of why remembering the alphabet is a must. The practice of using them to produce and spur out some phrases that breeds to sentences, to paragraphs, and to speech is the main objective of such memorization – the “real and essential learning.”

And just like going to school, and answering our paper exams, we need to restructure and redefine the process of how we learn – trying to understand what it is all about, which is primarily the golden rule in learning. Questions like, “Why do I have to study this?” and “What learning could I get from this?” or “How will this confuse me and sharpen my mental abilities?” are the right questions in redefining and reassessing our learning process at school.

Our teachers in the College of Business and Accountancy are all armed to instruct us. It is up to us to remember their instructions by heart and mind, and hopefully resuscitate them in the future, not just memorize them and “gone with the wind”.

Only then will we say that the words, “I have truly learned”.

To Whom it may Concern

"For some people, the best way to hide homosexuality
is to act homosexually.
Laugh at it. Jive with it until it covers up.
Because they simply know reverse psychology...
but sorry guy,not a very brilliant idea."

What a Talent! (Cup One)

If you think you've got talent, think again.

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A mix of everything.

Dear Diary,

It's October 13. and I've got a lot of rants today, diary. Not only because I felt dismayed of the final examinations going on, but because i haven't actually written much to you lately.

Today, I memorized a 100-page photocopy for an examination in International Marketing, only to realize that only a page of it came out. And yes again diary, i missed that only page. Fortunately dairy, i flunked together with most of them, and we are getting ready for a so-called Martial Law 2010. Isn't that cool?

But now that it has ended, diary, I felt a perfect mixture of everything under the sun: pressure, stirring emotions, worries, failures, successes, excitement, itching knees, flattery, love, missing feelings, and all that. This, however, resulted into a myriad of puzzle to me today.

Yes. diary. I am puzzled. I am so puzzled how responsibilities crash this week, and i am even puzzled how, amid my busyness, i was able to handle the pressures so far, that i still have time at this point to write for you.

I also am puzzled, diary, why i felt so in love despite arguments and heated conversations that have taken place the past weeks. Yes, diary. It felt so draining that i know i have to consume all the energies of the world to compensate. I think there's a need to never believe in quarrels anymore. They all end up in "sorrys", diary. And hugs too!

I am also puzzled, diary, why my bestfriend felt so confused when in fact, there's no big heck with choosing between a handsome guy and an appealing guy. She's got a long, long hair, diary... i hope she could still walk without stepping on it. She will also pose for our university magazine on Saturday. What a disaster!

I am also puzzled diary, why some beasts could be so different. You know, they become so desperate of getting a month-long debt to the extent of texting my Mamah and Ate one Friday night. Oh, how i felt so embarrassed, diary. I never want to feel that way again. Thank God I've paid it and may that shut the beast's dirty mouth now.

Now i guess i have to constantly update you. I felt a little lighter now... I think i will no longer be puzzled by the end of this week. I will soon be seeing two-point-zero scores to my grade sheets, and that will all be fine. The Martial Law 2010? I leave them all to God Almighty, dairy. 'Till next time.


Puzzlingly yours,
Joel

At Philippines' Grandest Mall

I was thinking all along that Mall of Asia was the best mall I've seen so far... But i realized that size doesn't matter now. What matters is how perfect it is... And yes, "The Terraces" of Ayala Center is Cebu's newest landmark that hit my jaw and dropped it! Really 5-star i should rate, with the best people, and the best ambiance.. Truly amazing!

What a great weekend that was.
(more photos at www.facebook.com/joelaba)

It pains your ass.

The most hard-hitting criticism i have ever heard from somebody was when I was told I was insecure. Another said my hosting in a municipal festival was "not good enough." Another was when I was told I am irresponsible, tactless, and boastful from a group of people I have called my family.

Upon hearing this, I had a hard time figuring out how true those were; wondered, kept asking if i really did wrong, or whether those criticisms were simply made to malign me and demotivate. These irritants of life, i should call, flinch me. I admit some of the criticism were right. but few of them were actually far-flung, and are meant to simply make noise.

In my 6 years of trying to prove something to myself, Thank God, I have learned enough how to play with criticisms. Everytime criticisms hit me as if it were a gun, i pull the bullet strongly out on the part of me I was hit, and in stride I analyze first if these were destructive or constructive before I begin react. I always think of the puzzle this way: there could only be two sides of the coin - one could either be because they are insecure, and the other one could mean its true.


I have always been passive to criticisms. I opened my life publicly to be appreciated, and well, criticized too! I lived being criticized and i find it challenging and life-changing. I never repel, only when there's a need to. And I have practiced constructive criticisms most especially to the people I care the most. "Real friends are those who can be roughly and harshly honest," they say, which I believe is also tantamount to love's.

There is actually no bad thing about criticisms, if only the people did not create the negative connotation masked on it. But there are some who think of it as if those were intended to irritate or demotivate them badly.

There is no "right authority" in criticism. Like our opinions, everyone of us are entitled to criticize constructively other people according to how we see things... and its up to them to either succumb and improve, or ignore and stagnate.

As far as I know, the improved people are those who passively succumb to critics and improve themselves from it. There are even successful people who live in criticisms to make themselves grow... and unless people take criticisms, people will stay on the level they are now. No growth. No improvement.

We just have to embrace criticisms as it were part of us. And to whom it may concern, may you find these words enlightening.