Then I Realized That I Was Dumb

Islamic & Asian Civilizations II, known as Ethnic Relation back few years ago.

And you have seen it for yourselves. I earned a B for that subject. And frankly speaking, I don't deserve that grade and I believe I deserve something better.

I could say that through this grade, my knowledge and my application of ethnic relation in daily life is just average. It's not even good and it's not even bad. There are still flaws here and there in understanding and applying the knowledge itself. Interpreted by the result.

But talking as a matured tertiary student, I believe there should be improvement in evaluating students performance in this subject rather than just having few written test to examine students' understanding in the subject. By taking a major of 60% of the subject, written test alone isn't enough to testify the end product.

Students can acquire the knowledge from reading either lecture notes or text books but do they really apply it? And with the knowledge they have, do they really understand the whole concept of ethnic relation in real life. I highly doubt that. I've seen for myself that even in university, we are still being racist among one another. The Malays will mix up among themselves as the Chinese and Indians having clicks from their own race.

It's true that we have multi-racial community in a class but can these people live together under one roof and accept each others faiths, beliefs and customs. Even the Malays up to date still question few Chinese and Indians customs, and we still have ethnic-based political parties and societies. My question is, my grading the students from written test alone, is it enough to ensure they really understand the issues mention above?

Participation in class, topic presentation and research study should be taken into account as major contributor to marks allocation. Through this, we can evaluate how far the students understand and apply the knowledge of ethnic relation in real life. Being in a country that applies examination-oriented education system, all these were minored because it's belived that performance are best shown through wriiten test, whereby reading books and memorizing therms and facts are more important than applying the knowledge itself.

Why I said I deserve to get a better grade?

I participated in class, and I can say I was the one who asked ackward questions that made people annoyed taking my questions in almost all presentation by my peers. Even the lecturer admitted that my questions are matured and relevent, and claimed by my peers as "high-standard' questions. It's not all that, that matters to me. I'm just being myself. Asking people about their opinions on certain matter and and avoid asking questions that I had already knew the answer. All they have to do is use their critical thinking and think and sometimes I made them think and most of the time, I couldn't make them think. However I believe I deserve a mark for that.

I didn't mean to say that I'm way better than my lecturer, and if I did said that, I apologize and I will take back my word. But getting total mark of 69/100 and just 1 mark insufficient of getting a B+, I was frustrated. My plea to the lecturer was denied because the grade has long been finalized by the Centre and Senate, and no amendments are allowed to be made. And that was the policy set up by the Centre. Again, another a policy that was long established without the students' knowledge. I'm sorry if any of my lecturers at the Centre felt hurt with the statement but that's the truth that we all have to bear with.

I remembered what my lecturers in English Dynamics used to tell the class. If you deserve an A, then I'll give you an A. And I stick to that to prove myself worth it. And now when I didn't, I felt angry towards myself. Have I not given all out to make the lecturer feel that I deserve to get my desired grade?

After a while, I realized that I was being immature. Result isn't everything. Even if my CPA isn't that promising but I do have all it takes for employment, I'll be employed. And that quality comes from undergoing situation as above. Grade isn't something. It's just a statement of alphabet in your academic transcipt ranging from A to F but that isn't the exact way of evaluating your actual knowledge in the particular subject and how do you imply all the knowledge you learnt in real life. That comes with addition of experience, spirit, determination and courage.

And I was dumb not thinking about it earlier. Now I can breathe easy again.