Back from the HSC

Hello again!

I have been absent for a long time, due to the HSC. But I'm finished now, and hopefully will be studying a Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications) next year. I'll find out on January 16.

Having just done it, I've been thinking a lot about the HSC lately, and its place in education. I loved my school subjects, but I wonder whether I have actually learnt that much this year. So many fascinating things that I heard in the classroom had to be pushed out of my brain to make room for completely memorising a few pages of summary notes in preparation for the exams. Much of what we learnt over the last twelve months was condensed into 40-minute essays. A term’s worth of learning about a Shakespearean classic was turned into six neat paragraphs, and these paragraphs are used to help decide whether or not we gain entry to the courses we want to do at university.

I have always loved learning, and it saddens me that the HSC makes some people hate learning so much. Of course, I understand that there is a need for some form of examination to make sure students actually deserve university placements, but I fear that this is at the expense of enjoyment of the fact that we can learn.

In Australia, we get to go to school for all of our childhoods, if we want. Now that it's compulsory until 17, most kids spend thirteen years at school, and public education makes it accessible even to the less fortunate. However, just a few hours away in countries such as Fiji, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, very few children have this privilege. My family sponsored some school students in Vanuatu to help them with their education - without this, they would have left school at fourteen, and never had any other formal education.

I don't write this to sing the praises of my family but to express just how blessed we are in Australia. Which is why the emotional effects of the HSC sometimes worry me. Exams leave students so anxious and upset that they find it incredibly easy to completely forget how lucky they are to be educated, and to learn so much.

I know it's hard - I've done it! But for future HSC students, I encourage you to try your best to remember how lucky you are, even if you are so stressed you can't sleep. You'll feel better about education, and you will value your time at school for more than the marks it gives you.

The problem with gendered language

In Extension English, I study the elective 'Language and Gender'. Basically, it talks about how men and women are supposed to use certain types of language, because of their gender. We also talk about the difference between sex and gender, but let's not go there right now...

According to the 'Language and Gender theorists' that we study, and the way that we look at things, any language that does not comply to the expectations of the theorists is a subversion. I'm still deciding whether I think this is the best way to look at things. Actually no, I know I don't think this is the best way. I think there is one main problem with applying theories to something like gendered language.

If we state that something is 'typically male' or 'typically female', we automatically apply stereotypes. Stereotypes limit. So women apparently lack a sense of humour, according to Robin Lackoff... what about female comedians? What about all the hilarious girls I know who make me laugh everyday? Heck, sometimes I try and be funny on my blog... does that mean I've been really unfunny just because I'm a girl? And men apparently use more commands, according to Deborah Tannen. So does that mean women can't be commanding?

The most interesting theory states that language is a system that sustains the male as the norm - so basically, women can never get ahead because language upholds male power.

In the past, I definitely can see how this was relevant. But now that we've replaced chairman with chairperson, mankind with humankind etc., I don't really see how this can possibly be relevant, unless we accept the stereotypes that the L+G theorists create and which we surprisingly all seem to hold despite never having heard of Tannen or Lackoff or Keith and Shuttleworth...

The main point of my post today is that we are being taught this in Year 12, just before going out into the "real world". So this is one of those things that will probably stick with us after we leave school, given how much we are studying this course and memorising all the theories to use in our essays. When we first started this course, I was pretty affronted that every HSC student's best friend, the beloved Board of Studies, wished us to learn about what were basically, in their most basic forms, stereotypes. Sophisticated ones, sure, but stereotypes nonetheless.

Now I'm starting to think that perhaps the BoS might have manipulated us just a tiny bit... because none of us believe these theories. Maybe that was the intention all along? Maybe the BoS wants us to think about the truth in stereotypes and learn not to believe this theorists?

You sneaky Board of Studies...

The art of not killing all your school friends

Anyone who has been to high school is going to know what I’m talking about here, particularly those who are doing or have already done the HSC.

For those who haven’t, I’ll just quickly explain something. In Year 12, your rankings in every subject matter a lot, as they moderate your marks in the final HSC exams. If you come first in a subject, your mark is set, but for everyone else, this system can be pretty terrifying, as you have no idea what effect everyone else’s marks will have on you. The higher your ranking in each task, the better. This leads to something quite odd, something which I like to call ‘The Love-Hate HSC Complex’.

By the time you reach Year 12, you’ve been at school with the same people for six years, maybe more if you went to the same primary school. Deep friendships have developed over years of shared classes, moaning about homework and lining up at the canteen. So in your head, this year is getting quite emotional, as you imagine next year, when, no matter what you do, you’re not going to see these people every day anymore. You start to appreciate everyone in a really, quite freakishly positive way. You forget all the times they’ve wronged you, that party they didn’t invite you to, the way they won’t let you copy their maths homework, that one time they hit you in the face with a cricket bat during PE (Accidentally! Of course!)…

While all these over-the-top emotions are rushing around inside your head, BAM! It’s time to get your marks back for an assessment. Suddenly, your passionate love for your classmates is buried under your passionate desire to RANK FIRST and WIN AT THE HSC. The whole grade is called into one classroom, and you’re sharing a seat with your best friend. You know, the perfect one with the perfect hair and the perfect work ethic? Yep, that one. The teachers are going to give you a big lecture about the assessment before they hand back the marks. This is the first problem. No one listens. They are too concerned with their ranking. Finally the teachers finish, and the assessments are handed out. You hold your breath as your essay/speech/exam is placed face down on the desk, then you turn it over.

18 out of 20. YES!

A great mark, of course. Yet, a niggling doubt still rests at the back of your mind. You crane your neck to try and spot other people’s marks without being too obvious, and catch a glimpse of the red number written on the Perfect Best Friend’s assessment.

19.

What?

The hatred takes over. For a few, blinding moments, you forget all that they are to you. You forget those flowers they gave you when you were sick/sad/happy, or the way they’ll answer their phone to talk to you even when it’s past midnight on a school night. All you feel is PURE, UNADULTERATED HATRED.

It’s natural of course. Everyone is feeling it right now, except the kid with 19. And you know that they must deserve the mark, and that you have no reason to hate them, but there it is. You want to wriggle off your chair and go booby-trap their locker.

Suddenly, they turn to you. Smile. “How’d you go?”

It sounds like an innocent enough question, but everyone knows that behind that open-ended inquiry is the burning desire to ensure they are the best. They want to know your mark. And because they’ve probably already spied, you answer. “18”.

They grin. “That’s great!”

You could interpret their response as them being nice, and truly affirming your result, but you’re still a bit blind, so you instantly think that they’re only glad because you didn’t beat them.

And so it continues.

I frequently see and experience this. You can get a great mark, and still not be happy, because your ranking is not good. It’s unfortunate that the year when everyone finally seems to love each other is also the year in which we have to compete with such stakes. But in my time, I’ve figured out a few ways not to kill my friends (and make sure they don’t kill me!) when the Hate aspect of the ‘Love-Hate HSC Complex’ sets in…*

1.       Remember, if you can, that they are still your friend.

2.       Think about your different goals. Take university entry as an example. Unless your friend wants to do the exact same course as you, you’re only competing to do the best you can, not to get in to the course, so you can’t hate them for threatening your chances.

3.       Remember you’re not the only person who wants to do well. Try and feel some happiness for the people who did well as they try and achieve their dreams.

4.       Don’t take it out on anyone. Wait till you get home and then rant to your soft toys.

5.       Try not to cry or say that you did awfully (at least in front of everyone – again, wait for the soft toys). Sure, everyone has different standards, but even if you think coming tenth is a bad rank, imagine how the person who came fortieth is going to feel hearing you moan about how badly you did. If you come dead last, moan all you like.

*Anyone who knows me may think I’m being hypocritical writing this because of my tendency to lost it a bit over bad marks. To them I say... do what I say, not what I do. But I do try to follow my own advice!

Omitted history

I am currently doing the HSC, and studying Modern History. As part of this course, everyone has to do a personality study. At my school, we're doing the wonderful horrible Leni Riefenstahl.

Before this year, I'd never heard of Leni. Turns out she's a really important person. She worked as a film director for the Nazi Party in the lead-up to World War Two, directing a very propaganda-y film called Triumph of the Will that glorifies all things Nazi, followed by a documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

After the war, Leni was arrested and trialled on the grounds of being a Nazi, but was eventually acquitted. But she never worked as a director again. Ever since the end of the war, until her death in 2003 at the remarkable age of 101, she protested her innocence, stating that she only did what she did because she was passionate about film and her career, and had no real idea about the Nazi policies including the concentration camps. Considering her close relationship with Hitler, I'm not convinced, and neither are most of the historians studying her life.

But it begs some interesting questions - when investigating a person, can you take what they say about their life as truth? Are autobiographies reliable sources? (Is the HSC making me overthink things???)

For an assignment that I'm finishing off at the moment, our teacher pointed us to 'The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl', a three-hour epic documentary of her extraordinary life. The best part about it is that the old footage and recounts are spliced with candid interviews with Leni herself. When I heard this, I though 'bingo! I'm going to hear it exactly as it was!'. Alas, no. She lies, sometimes right out. If anything, the documentary has made me even more confused about what really happened, and what her real motives were.

But it has brought me one major epiphany: perhaps we find the truth about history in what isn't said. Maybe all we'll ever know about Leni is that she didn't want to tell the truth about why she worked for Hitler, and maybe that's enough - if she won't tell the truth, she's obviously got something to hide.