another final paper complete, another class down. i almost feel like online school is cheating. it's not to say that i'm not learning, but the temptation to half-ass your way through classes is pretty big. it's just so easy to do. i don't think i read even 50% of the textbook for this last class, and i know for a fact that it is mathematically impossible for me to fail the class at this point, given that i have like 67% in the actual classwork and the final is worth 30% of my total grade. i would need to get a zero on my paper, which is also impossible by virtue of the fact that i wrote one at all, to fail.
i seriously contemplated the idea of literally bullshitting my way to the completion of an online b.a. and writing a book about how the system needs to change because it is literally that bad. it's not that learning can't happen, it's that non-learning can happen. you could pretty much get through an entire b.a. program online and learn as little as possible about the subject matter if you know how to speed-read textbooks [which i learned in community college and could teach someone in a matter of 10 minutes] and b.s. a decent research paper.
research paper, a.k.a. legalized plagiarism.
don't get me wrong, legitimate research papers accomplish much, but the kind of drek they will accept as passable [not to mention exemplary] is staggering. i wrote my 9-page research paper on use of modern educational linguistic research and theory in a selected lesson plan in literally less than 3 hours. that is, if you count only the time i was actually writing stuff and not messing around on facebook or zoning out. the entire process took me one day. i hadn't even thought of what i was going to write about until last night... and by last i mean this, and by night i mean 2:00 in the morning.
so what does this mean? does it mean that the system is too easily exploitable or does it mean that i'm just really good at half-assing schoolwork? i refuse to believe that it's all me, because it's not like puffing up a research paper with excessive repetition and thesaurus-style superfluity is rocket science. having a large vocabulary helps, but it can only get you so far. it's enablement [which chrome doesn't think is a word, which boggles the mind] on the part of the institution. i'm learning a lot from these classes, but i can only guess how much less motivated students are.
p.s. thanks to everyone who expressed their concern for the well-being of my teeth... on just about every social media site except on this actual blog. ;-P christin found us an h.m.o. through blue shield that is affordable and will get my work done relatively inexpensively. we'll be doing that next month. in other news, please pray that i can fix christin's car easily tomorrow. thanks, it's much appreciated.
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