Quality Over Quantity

It is so easy to get caught in that routine way of thinking, "Do this once a week." After all we do things like this all the time for certain classes and activites, because practice makes perfect. But the problem with this method is that it does not take into account the weeks you simply cannot fit in time to do your regular routine because of the out of ordinary events that take place. It is almost the same thing as a quota, and whether teachers like it or not...this is not a job, this is school. We are here to learn and I don't think it is morally right to base things off of quantity over quality. Sometimes I wish I went to a school with no grades because I honestly believe school has become about the letter on your transcipt rather than a quality education to better the world. I look at the letters that determine my future and I think..."these letters say absolutely nothing about who I am...except journalism...that A is earned because I work my ass off because I am passionate about journalism and it means a lot to me." So when I receive a NM for not blogging for 3 weeks, I think to myself...wow...I blogged before it was graded when I had more time...and then web editor responsibilities, print issue, writing for the web, planning to lead next years Flash Staff, and AP Tests overwhelmed me and I forgot to blog. I know I am not the only one who didn't come out of the blog cycle unscathed, and I know they don't deserve a grade drop either because I know how passionate and helpful they are to The Flash. I could care less about how it almost changed my grade to a B...what really bugs me is when I read my fellow classmates blogs and they are so well thought out, meaningful, and interesting and I think...these people deserve 100% they take their time and write such long and thoughtful blogs! But rather they are being judged on a quota number, "1 a week..." Which does not take into account whether they got busy trying to contribute to The Flash in other ways...and it bugs me knowing that it might have actually changed their grade to a B or even a C....I will always be a strong supporter of quality over quantity and next year I will make sure that people are graded by their efforts and not their numbers. The point of blogging is to practice our writing and to ask ourselves questions about the school, our lives, society, the world...Why? Because that is what good writers do, we observe what is going on around us. I observed that the blogs outraged people in class today and it made me question things. I encourage you to ask yourself...why do we constantly grade people by numbers rather than effort or quality? Is it because it is easier? And if so...why have grades become how we judge who people are? Some of the best people I have ever met are not 4.0 students...Some of the most successful people in the world did not have perfect SAT Scores. Why do people base who we are off numbers? Does that really set up our nation for success?