examinations vs experiences
--Examination is a fundamental approach in knowing student’s level of understanding in their studies but it’s impossible to predict their career success by using their examination results. However, lifetime experiences determine a person’s career success.
Universities are normally accepted as a higher learning institute that will provide its students with a certificate that would create their path to a successful career in their future. Basically it is understood that examinations are done in order to evaluate a student’s level of knowledge for the subjects studied in the university. In reality, this belief is unfortunately wrong. To rephrase, examinations are only a temporary evaluation of a student’s brain capacity to memorize what they have studied from their textbooks.
First of all we look at the format of examination usually done in universities. The basic format would be to have multiple choice questions, true or false, short essays or structured questions and lastly long essays. The first two formats are indeed just exactly testing a student’s ability to memorize facts taught by their lecturers. The structured and long essays would, in a minor percentage, predict a student’s logical thinking ability or how creative their mind thinks. However the predictability level is limited. This is because the questions are mostly asking about the subjects being learned and not about career development. Most students forget what they have learned for their examinations even after the semester break itself. This is because most of them never grab the essence of what is learned, they merely just memorize and answer. It’s undeniable that these questions could foresee the level of understanding in a certain area of their subjects but to predict their success in career it is quite impossible. Fact is there is no any other possible way to predict a student’s success in their career.
Career happens to be a lifelong experience. When graduates starts their career life, they need in depth understanding of what the particular job demands from them, plus they need lots of experience in order to constantly improve the quality of job. Actually a person needs to constantly collect experiences from the period they begin studying and working. As we can see here the keyword seems to be experience.Some people say life is the best teacher and often it is true. Actually the more older a person gets, the more expected and unexpected things would happens throughout their life in order for them to reach that desired wisdom at a certain point of age. Likely there is a theory called empiricism that means the view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge. Now this is a theory to ponder in this argument. So if we think for a second we can analyze that when we work it is impossible that we apply 100% of what we have learned in school and universities. Most probably we would apply 50% or less of it. Going to school or university is all about learning and getting to know the basics and details of something while the amount of experiences gained throughout the period a person starts to build their path to a successful career is priceless. Many people learn from mistakes in life that makes them to strive to make a difference and improve their value of job they have in their hand.
A classic example would be Abraham Lincoln, the 16th American President of the United States of America. During his time, Lincoln knew how to read and write but he never pursued learning in a higher institution nor did he ever sit for an examination. The man was a self –educated person and was smart enough to use his ability and ambitious character to rise rapidly in his political career.
As we can see a person can get promoted way faster with that experience they hold rather than the first class certificate they have obtained. Anyone can make big money with experience that teaches them great techniques of money making, but with the same certificate, you just get to have a nice roof on top of your head. Many fresh first class graduates are most of the time jobless or unable to look for a job position that suits their previous field of studies. Funny, but it's true.
To conclude, we should understand that examination is fundamental but experiences brings out the better person in anybody, turns people to be mature in decision making, develops a person’s structure and leads to a promising future.However knowledge from lifetime experiences would be a good teacher to oneself most of the time and even if it is communicable to others, only those who has experienced something learns the most from their own experience. Experiences are not read, it is felt by all senses of the human body.
so now come to think of it, can we just go to learning institutes, attend lectures & tutorials, educate ourselves, get a degree but minus the exams? ;)
what can we learn from the infamous Zidane "headbutt"
What happens when a sports superstar decides to make a bad move during a match? Most of the time, the outcome of a negative behavior would spark furious comments from thousands that have been watching from the stands and possibly millions more from home. Many incidents like this would normally be ended with public apology by the sullen athletes and most probably they would be punished by the games federation. Throughout the last century cases of professional athletes showing their rage during game has been increasing. For example footballer Francesco Totti has spat Christian Paulsen in the face, in America Tennessee Titans defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth had stomped on another player's head, the famous Eric Cantona had ‘karate kicked’ his fan in 1995. Recently the world was shocked once again when star French Midfielder Zinedine Zidane was sent off for ‘headbutting’ Italian, Marco Materazzi in the chest in an off the ball incident during the 110th minute of the 2006 World Cup final match in Germany.
Zidane had announced before that he would retire from professional football after the 2006 World Cup and this event led him to receive the red card from the referee. It was an awful way to end his successful career. The chronology of the incident is believed to be when initially the two players exchanged words before Zidane began to walk away from him. Next Materazzi then said something to Zidane, who turned around, made a run-up and head-butted Materazzi in the chest, sending him to the ground. Later during the FIFA investigations, video footage suggested that Materazzi had provoked Zidane and newspapers had lip readers try to determine what Materazzi had said, coming up with a variety of insults. Zidane admitted to the press that Materazzi has repeatedly said harsh comments about his mother and sister. Materazzi admitted insulting Zidane, but said that Zidane's behavior had been very arrogant. He stressed that the insults had been trivial and denied that he insulted Zidane’s mother. Lip readers were hired to suggest what might have been said by both parties. Materazzi's alleged dialogue before the incident translated from the Italian language was most probably “hold on, wait, that one's not for a nigger like you. We all know you are the son of a terrorist whore. So just f*** off.” But at the end of the day no professional lip readers could prove the accuracy of what actually has been said by both parties. Both of them has been later fined and suspended by world governing body Fifa.
I believe that people deserve second chances, even these professional athletes too, but as we see, they are also human like us and they tend to make mistakes in live and learn by regretting their mistakes. A lot of other concerns would arise, primarily is the affect this type of behavior has on those impressionable young minds watching from the stands and at home as well. The negative impact would be a huge damage to kids around the world who has been a number one fan for that particular sports superstar.
Many different views arose since Zidane’s heatbutting incident happened. Many variety of reviews were made by people worldwide saying that his attitude was a shame and it has tarnished his awesome football career throughout his years. Oppositely some said that his behavior has been making him more as a real HERO. If someone insulted a person’s race or religion, he'd be as ready to attack that person, no matter what the circumstances. Zidane's action in a way has highlighted for the world the fact that the racial unity of France is more important than winning the World Cup title itself. Some suggested that rules should never be broken especially during a very important match like World Cup and that bad behavior in matches should mean stiffer penalties. It’s been clear that Zidane was provoked into behaving badly as any sane man would not have done something drastic as this during his last final match of his career. Despite the incident in the last ten minutes of the match, Zidane, a Muslim of Algerian parentage and proclaimed in France as an inspiration of multiculturalism, was voted the tournament's best player and received full support from the President of France, Jacques Chirac, Abdelaziz Boutelfika the President of Algeria and his ever loyal fans especially those of from France itself.
This incident has opened the eyes of people on the reality of what is happening in Europe itself nowadays. What we could observe between French and Italian team during the World Cup 2006 is that the French since World Cup 1998 had a line up of multi-cultural players and were even called the Black, Blanc, Beur which means black, white and Arab. However the Italian team line up comprised only pure Italians. Racial identity crisis is now becoming widespread in European countries such as France, Spain and Italy. Multiculturalism is not fully accepted by all citizens in these European countries. People still prefer on having their originals citizens to reside in these countries and don’t give a good treatment to some immigrants mainly from Africa and Arabic countries that live in their country. Terrorism that has tarnished the good name of the Arabic race has given some hard time to other innocent immigrants in European countries as condemnation to them slowly kills their self-esteem. The Europe’s identity crisis is something that should not be neglected, it should be inspected in 360 degrees and preventive and corrective measures are to be taken before this situation goes out of control. Conflict or the superiority of races should be abolished and Europeans and the societies in the world should look optimistically at the mass advantages of cross – cultural integration such as spoken language variability, improvement of economic conditions, increase in tourists, fusion of foods, better understanding of cultures and identities and transparency that breaks cultural barriers between different nations.
While the world is adapting and turning into globalization and cross-cultural integration, all the races should unite and try their best in understanding different cultures. Football on the other hand is a game played by humans and not robots, therefore, the game should be played professionally but like all other humans, footballer's makes mistakes too and they deserve to be forgiven when they do wrong.
