My Life Today Through Cartoons

So today was PSAT day! You cannot imagine how unhappy I felt about taking the test. Even though I had gotten pretty comfortable with the few practice tests I had done just before the test, I still knew today was going to be one heck of a day. So instead of just simply writing about my anxieties of the day, I thought I would express it through cartoons! 
I got to my test room at around 8:30 this morning. The proctor was one those stingy and snappy counselors. Like a proper proctor, she read all the instructions on the PSAT pamphlet. Instead of asking us to climb a tree, she informed us that as a fair way to gauge the selection of National Merit qualifiers, we would have to take a 2 hour and 10 minutes test that consisted of four 25 minute sections and one 30 minute section.

When I was handed my test packet and answer sheet, I immediately started sweating. What if there was a question I didn’t know? Would I have enough time to finish all the questions? Should I guess or leave a question blank if I don’t know it? These were questions that I probed myself with before the test. The more I looked at the test packet, the more I saw the words, “The Rest of Your Life!”. (It didn’t help that the room juxtaposed to my testing room was the copier room. So throughout the whole test I could hear the copiers go “ca-chunk” the whole time.)

When the test finally began, I sprinted off on the sections. The only section I really had an objection about was the second math section, surprisingly. I’m Asian. Math is my strong suit. But somehow time got away from me, and I found myself scurrying through the section, especially the free response portion. Maybe it was just me overreacting to the fact that I was running out of time. Soon enough though, I heard myself shouting profanities in my head. For some reason, the shouting of profanities in my head had a calming effect on my mental awareness, and I was able to finally focus and finish the section on time.

It’s 9:48 now. The test has long been over. Now it’s the worst part: waiting. This is the time when you think back to every question on the test and imagine if you accidentally bubbled in the wrong answer, misinterpreted a reading passage question, or miscalculated a math problem. This is also the time when you contemplate the implications of your PSAT score on your life. The picture is black and white. You can imagine yourself qualifying for National Merit and living happily ever after or you can imagine yourself getting less than a 213 and getting eaten by the big bad wolf.

The sad part about educational testing  these days is that you have to answer the right questions at the right time. If you don’t, then boy that’s too bad. I’m the girl in the middle of the picture; I’m just hoping that I’ll fit right in.

The Creativity Crisis

One of my homework assignments in AP Lit this week was to post a response to my class blog about the “creativity crisis” in America and our school systems. I thought I would share my thoughts here in hopes of enlightening those who might be dropping by here. Like always, enjoy!

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I believe that our country’s decline in creativity has the majority to do with our growing complacency and self-satisfaction with our lifestyles. This largely stems from advancements in technology and the internet. Nowadays we can nurture our slightest curiosities by simply typing a few words into Google, and we will almost always be guaranteed with a satisfactory answer in return. Despite some arguments posted earlier which claim that the internet can stimulate creative ideas, I believe that most people abuse the internet as a way to find a “quick fix” to homework or projects instead of using it as a creative source to draw from. My final remarks about technology and the internet is that both make people lazy and unwilling to work hard or innovatively to find a solution to a problem.

The creativity crisis in schools in just as alarming and can be considered even more alarming than that of which our country is suffering from right now. I believe our country is too focused on standardized testing. This is because our country functions the education system like a “business”; they try to find the most expedient ways possible to produce the same results. I will play the devil’s advocate for a minute. Standardized tests, for one, are a cheap, easy and an uniform way to test students across the board. Ironically, they don’t require much creativity. On the other hand, being creative in education is expensive. If all the questions on tests were free response instead of multiple choice, we’d have to pay people to come in to read them—both of which would require time and money.

Because it is most unlikely that our country will chug more money into education, I would suggest that parents get more involved in their child’s education. Hopefully through this encouragement, students will find education a passionate pursuit for knowledge instead of simply a chore. Creativity is the reason we stay fresh. Creativity is the reason we are not living in caves right now. Creativity is what pushes us forward.