The Race Track

It's a beautiful day outside. The roads are empty and are glittering in the drowsy morning sun, still wet from the pouring rain last night. The sun, still waking up and still numb from the cold weather which it challenged during the last few days, is battling the grey clouds hung over the horizon, and shining, no matter what, brilliantly, and illuminating the streets of Ankara. There is a gentle breeze, and in the brisk morning air, it seems as though all you needed was a gentle push of wind to get you going. The trees I see from the living room window are the brightest and the liveliest green, perhaps a result of the refreshing rain and the gentle cold air.

And what am I doing?

Sitting in my room, with piles of paper on my desk, waiting to be read and memorized just so they could be transferred onto a test paper tomorrow and then be forgotten forever, getting ready to take eight mid-terms in the next five days.

School, is not a "dream factory", it is not a "second home". It is a racing track, with pit stops called "classrooms" and the gasoline that fuels your car (in this case that's you) called "education". It is all about getting grades, being better than anyone else. If it wasn't for grades, what would school mean?

Humans have this tendency to measure everything. Their intelligence, which I think cannot be measured by a single test, how good they are in specific areas, how much money they have and so on. They want to compete, and be criticized.

For example, I  may like physics very much and enjoy studying it; however, my "success" is not measured by how much I enjoy studying a subject, but how good I answer challenging questions about it in a specific time and under stress, with loads of information crammed into my head.

Now, in the IB (International Baccelaureate, a study program brilliantly and specifically engineered for maximum suffering), your future is not necessarily determined by a grade you get from one test. Of course, your final test grade from a subject makes a large part of your subject grade, but you are also graded on lab reports, essays and assessments you write, mostly at home, not under such stress (at least most of the time): when you can show what you really can accomplish.

If it wasn't for competing with everyone else and being criticized by tests, people and numbers, people would be aimless in life. So, we've built facilities, research centers, education centers, test centers and schools, with exams and mid-terms, which now all of the students, (including me) have to go study for.