Pathetic Mediocrity
I got the grade back from the presentation I gave in class last Monday. The professor thought that the discussion I lead was strong (though not overly-well participated in by the class), that the film clips I used to present my discussion topic were wisely chosen, and that the lesson plan I wrote to accompany the presentation was detailed and well thought. For this effort, I earned myself an A.
I thought it was all crap. I could only get two people really invested in the discussion (though, to be fair to myself, it's not a particularly chatty class), the professor disagreed with my personal stand on the topic, and I completely forgot to make sufficient copies of the extra materials (a painting, some poetry and lyrics to a Patty Griffin song), so none of those things added the extra oomph to the argument that I'd hoped they would. And yet, I still earned an A. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
I mean, obviously I'm pleased that I got an A. Duh. Yet this leads me to two essentially oppositional questions, the first of which is am I really THAT hard on myself? Beecause this happens to me a lot - I think I've done a crappy, slipshod job and I wind up with much better results than I expected and I'm genuinely surprised every time it happens. The second question is has life in general, and college in particular, become so complacent with pathetic mediocrity that the stuff I do seems A-worthy? If so, I'm afraid for our future.
I'd almost rather the first question were true - THAT, at least, I can change. I highly suspect, though, that it's a combination of factors, that it's both my lowered self-esteem AND inflated grading practices that lead to my seemingly stellar performance review. I suppose I should be happy that it's not the other way around - that the expectations aren't so high that they can't be reasonably obtained. At least I wasn't expecting a B but receiving a C-.
I thought it was all crap. I could only get two people really invested in the discussion (though, to be fair to myself, it's not a particularly chatty class), the professor disagreed with my personal stand on the topic, and I completely forgot to make sufficient copies of the extra materials (a painting, some poetry and lyrics to a Patty Griffin song), so none of those things added the extra oomph to the argument that I'd hoped they would. And yet, I still earned an A. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
I mean, obviously I'm pleased that I got an A. Duh. Yet this leads me to two essentially oppositional questions, the first of which is am I really THAT hard on myself? Beecause this happens to me a lot - I think I've done a crappy, slipshod job and I wind up with much better results than I expected and I'm genuinely surprised every time it happens. The second question is has life in general, and college in particular, become so complacent with pathetic mediocrity that the stuff I do seems A-worthy? If so, I'm afraid for our future.
I'd almost rather the first question were true - THAT, at least, I can change. I highly suspect, though, that it's a combination of factors, that it's both my lowered self-esteem AND inflated grading practices that lead to my seemingly stellar performance review. I suppose I should be happy that it's not the other way around - that the expectations aren't so high that they can't be reasonably obtained. At least I wasn't expecting a B but receiving a C-.
posted by Mrs. Chili at 4/11/2005 07:13:00 AM
1 Comments:
You know, I think about this a lot but I come at it from such a different perspective.
I grew up around a lot of supposedly smart people. I was put in high level classes, I went to first grade in a foreign country. My ambitions and interests, however, all seem to be just slightly askew from what all these smart people were looking for and at. So, I was somehow not part of the crowd and hadn't read the right books, or gotten the lesson on grammar or been given the trick about multiplication or whatever it was they were doing that I wasn't. As a result I didn't think of myself as being very smart. I was (am?) average.
It's only in the last 5 years or so that I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm probably better read and more intelligent on a lot of levels than the majority of the people that I put myself below as I slogged through High School and college. I may specialize in different things but as a rule I'm pretty fucking smart. Who knew?
The other day I was on IM at work, doing some work stuff while having 2 simultaneous IM conversations, one about Jane Austen and movies made from her work and the other about the relationship between literary criticism to one's own interpretation of a literary work as it relates specifically to Frankenstein. And it was one of those times when I thought, "Hey, you know what? Not everyone is doing this right now. And not everyone could if given the opportunity." And I don't mean this to toot my own horn or anything, it's just a fact, there are plenty of people out there who could have had those conversations and contributed more than I did on those topics or a thousand others.
I spent a lot of time temping and I almost always got good response about my work. Not until I had to start hiring temps myself did I realize that I am different in my knowledge base, skill set and work ethic from 95% of the temps out there.
At this point, surely, you are wondering how this relates to your post. Yes, I think you are smarter and better prepared than the average person doing what you are doing. Let's not forget I was having the Frankenstein conversation with YOU. You are also older than many of the people in the course, yes? So your work ethic, your knowledge of your own abilities and desires is likely better developed than most of them. There are a lot of factors going on here.
Was the presentation YOUR best work? From what you say I'm guessing it wasn't. Was it A work for what the professor expected? It seems so. I think browbeating yourself over not fulfilling your exact potential every second of every day isn't probably going to help anything. You're in grad school. It's less about the grades now, more about absorbing what you need to do your best in your chosen profession and you're the only one who is going to be able to grade that.
That said, yeah, I totally worry that we're raising a generation of kids who have a small knowledge base and no idea how to judge their own potential or the desire to live up to it but we've got you and Julie and Devon and Laura and...OK every single one of us in this group contributing to the raising and teaching of another generation and therefore combatting this mediocrity. It's all we can do, to live up to our own potential in teaching people more. You're doing a good job. Please acknowledge that.
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