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A new semester, a new beginning
Jan. 30th, 2004 11:50 pm
[Mr. MacGregor reading off the sheet] "...students will focus on the motives, consequences, and alternative choices in the twentieth century global interactions since WWI." (emphasis mine)
From that moment on, I could not feel but be relieved. I was where I wanted to be. No focus on how wars are fought and focus on alternatives.
I knew better than Ms. Greeniaus (guidance counsellor) -- she had been trying to persuade me to do social self-study so I could choose what material I read or watched. What if, she asked, if the teacher taught the same sort of material in class as Antonuk? He wouldn't, I said. I know from friends and my experience sitting in on a social 20 class last year that the regular curriculum doesn't go into the icky parts of war. But SS30 is different, she said. My friends tell me it's still like that, just like SS20, just different topics, I say. The other thing I like about the regular curriculum is the emphasis also on peaceful relations and cooperation as a means to strive for peace. How nice of the minister, really. In such a depressing world give us such hope rather than the institutionalized pessimism of the IB curriculum. I told her that the one thing, and it has little basis in substantiatable evidence, that is convincing me to do SS30 in a classroom setting rather than independently, is this: that after having been through the trauma of IB, who would have any motivation left to study history? You could give me a history book and tell me to read it but I wouldn't be able to make myself do it; so much it has made me loathe the subject. That's why I need to be in a class with a teacher, to put pressure on me to do the work.
It's different from insisting on having someone to make you work on something you don't like, that's just a simple lack of self-motivation and autonomy. This is a loss of self-motivation through grief and suffering. I didn't choose to be unmotivated. Circumstances lead to this, making me fear the subject. I don't hate it (I did when I was being tortured by it though), I'm afraid of it because it's become a threat to me. It's dangerous. Subconsciously I fear it might explode again if I don't handle it properly.
But it is true that I still want my revenge -- I may have smiled at her but inside I think I'm still angry at her for the way she dismissed me, but that was a personality thing, not a situation thing.
From that moment on, I could not feel but be relieved. I was where I wanted to be. No focus on how wars are fought and focus on alternatives.
I knew better than Ms. Greeniaus (guidance counsellor) -- she had been trying to persuade me to do social self-study so I could choose what material I read or watched. What if, she asked, if the teacher taught the same sort of material in class as Antonuk? He wouldn't, I said. I know from friends and my experience sitting in on a social 20 class last year that the regular curriculum doesn't go into the icky parts of war. But SS30 is different, she said. My friends tell me it's still like that, just like SS20, just different topics, I say. The other thing I like about the regular curriculum is the emphasis also on peaceful relations and cooperation as a means to strive for peace. How nice of the minister, really. In such a depressing world give us such hope rather than the institutionalized pessimism of the IB curriculum. I told her that the one thing, and it has little basis in substantiatable evidence, that is convincing me to do SS30 in a classroom setting rather than independently, is this: that after having been through the trauma of IB, who would have any motivation left to study history? You could give me a history book and tell me to read it but I wouldn't be able to make myself do it; so much it has made me loathe the subject. That's why I need to be in a class with a teacher, to put pressure on me to do the work.
It's different from insisting on having someone to make you work on something you don't like, that's just a simple lack of self-motivation and autonomy. This is a loss of self-motivation through grief and suffering. I didn't choose to be unmotivated. Circumstances lead to this, making me fear the subject. I don't hate it (I did when I was being tortured by it though), I'm afraid of it because it's become a threat to me. It's dangerous. Subconsciously I fear it might explode again if I don't handle it properly.
But it is true that I still want my revenge -- I may have smiled at her but inside I think I'm still angry at her for the way she dismissed me, but that was a personality thing, not a situation thing.
