The EdublogsClub prompt this week is assessment. I was watching Train to Busan last night. It was a brilliant movie and I felt close to tears at some points. One scene stood out to me, it was when a rough-looking man who was mumbling hid in a bathroom stall and Yon-suk was asking the train guard to investigate. The train guard opened the door and tried to talk to the man. Yon-suk and a child named Soo-an witnessed the interaction; Yon-suk then turned to Soo-an and this exchange took place (approximate translation):

Yon-suk If you don’t study hard, you’ll end up like him.
Soo-an My mom said that anyone who says that is a bad person.
Yon-suk I guess your mother didn’t study hard.

These attitudes are so prevalent that I’ve given up arguing with them. Because you always get a comeback like the above. I didn’t do well in assessments at school, that’s true. Then three years ago when I started getting merits and distinctions on my access course. Even then I had no reason to be happy about my grades because I knew people would criticise my choice in a soft subject or argue that access courses are easier than A-levels (or something like that).

So I have accepted that if I want my knowledge or skills to be verified I need to do assessments. And that’s just the way it is.

The End

Similar to the feedback blog post, I find I like to quiz myself. I stumbled upon a game called The End a few years back and it encouraged me to go back and question my own beliefs. There is a series of philosophical questions about death alongside the game. Your answers put you on a map called the Death Dial.

There are pieces on each of the famous thinkers. Which is a feature I found interesting because I ended up being further away from the famous thinkers I politically sympathise with on the Death Dial than I expected. So, I experimented with different answer combinations to see where that would move me. I also noticed that I felt strongly that I did not want to be on the map because I think death is a very personal thing, but then I questioned why I was feeling so precious about it.

I still have reservations about my answers, not because I’m unsure but because I don’t think it’s my place to say… and also, I think there are qualifiers. One of the questions is whether I think animals understand death – I think they may understand that it will happen, but I don’t necessarily think they know the meaning of it any more than we do. But then, what does it matter if their understanding is flawed? Is a flawed understanding still an understanding? Also, can understanding ever be flawed if it is a personal feeling?

My answers still continue to change. Because time and learning have changed me too.

Your profile shows your progress through the game.

Assessment can sometimes feel like an end. And I think that’s why I find them so hard. I’m never ready for change.