Perspective

My parents were recently getting rid of some old stuff in their garage and the came across a box that was mine. There were some books in it, a couple pictures, and my A.P. English & A.P. European folders from senior year in high school. I didn't really want to keep them, but I thought it would be fun to look through them first. Apart from a treasure trove of old inside jokes, I found a bunch of papers I had written. I always thought I was a fairly good writer in high school. My teachers almost always seemed to like my work, and I consistently received scores in the 90's. Of course, I feel I have become an even better writer since then with the training received in College and the general life experience gained (and no judging my writing skills based on my blog - it doesn't count), but I was not prepared for what I would find reading these high school papers. Now, keep in mind that these 'A' papers helped me pass my classes and A.P. tests, so they couldn't be that bad right? Wrong!! I was in histerics as I read them. It was laughable that I would be given good grades on these things. Were my teachers crazy? So you don't believe that I could have written anything sub par? (Don't worry - hee hee -I know no one out there thinks that). Well, here's an example. This particular sentence stood out to me as being especially rediculous. I don't remember the topic, but I was writing about Russia (for A.P. European History), and mentioned Ivan the Terrible. Here's part of what I wrote: "Blah blah blah something about Russia, starting with the reign of Ivan the Terrible, so named because he was terrible." What the?!! Wow. I must not have gleaned too much from that chapter if all I could say was that Ivan was called the Terrible because he was infact terrible. I did actually go onto say a little more about him, but still! And that paper received a 94%! I wonder if todays students are held to such obviously low standards? Hmmm. It makes you wonder how anyone could be "left behind" when this is as far as they are expected to come. I never realized just how easy life really was in high school. If only life could be that simple and easy now. =)