Your grades do not define you. Stop thinking they do.

[Trekkie_Aspie]

For those of you who are yet to am released from prison, let me assure you that your grade does not define who you are. More to the point, it only defines if you let it.
Let’s think for a moment. You are capable of overcoming astronomical odds. It doesn’t matter what gender you are, what colour you are, what sex you are, what your age is. You are capable of achieving in the face of ever-surmounting odds. I’ve probably never met you. But I still know that you are capable of this feat. If you’re asking why, Let me show you the journey of your life that shows me you can beat those difficult odds.

We begin before you are even conceived. This is a journey of your life but before you could even am thought about, your parents first have to meet. The probability of your parents meeting is around 1 in 20,000.

So far, they just know that one another exist. But they still need to actually talk to one another. The probability of just one talk is 1 in 10.
But humans don’t just say “Hi, let’s have sex” and go at it. The chances of another meeting is 1 in 10. But still, your parents haven’t even had sex yet. The chances of that turning into a long term relationship? Also, 1 in 10. Half of these long-term relationships last long enough for kids. Probability of that specific paring having children? 1 in 2000.

For those of you who have lost count, that’s one in 40 million. And yet you’re not quite conceived yet. A specific egg and a specific sperm have to meet. Chances of you existing now? A very slim 1 in 400 quadrillion. This is a huge number – it’s a lot bigger than 4 million for a start.
But…
Before that, your grandparents had to meet and have children and so did your great-great-great grandparents and so on, right up to that amoeba that eventually led to you. Because the existence of you here now on planet earth presupposes another supremely unlikely and utterly undeniable chain of events. Namely, that every one of your ancestors lived to reproductive age – going all the way back not just to the first Homo sapiens, first Homo erectus and Homo habilis, but all the way back to the first single-celled organism. You are a representative of an unbroken lineage of life going back 4 billion years.

Let’s not get carried away here; we’ll just deal with the human lineage. Say humans or humanoids have been around for about 3 million years, and that a generation is about 20 years. That’s 150,000 generations. Say that over the course of all human existence, the likelihood of any one human offspring to survive childhood and live to reproductive age and have at least one kid is 50:50 – 1 in 2. Then what would am the chance of your particular lineage to have remained unbroken for 150,000 generations?
It’s a very large number indeed. I won’t even try writing it down. Put it this way: Imagine the universe. Good, now Imagine that every particle in the universe is its own universe, Imagine the sheer scale this multiverse would be. That image is smaller than the odds against you being here.

Times 400 quadrillion to the 150,000 generations that led to you. As a zygote, you had already done something remarkable. The exact numbers don’t matter but here’s an equivalent scenario:

Herd the population of San Diego (roughly) into a room and have them play a board game. The rules are simple: Every single one of the players, which number about two million are given their own trillion-sided dice. They are all to roll the dice once: the goal is for every player to roll the exact same number. As an example, let’s say 550,343,279,001. Call this game whatever you like but the plain fact is that they have a better chance at winning the game than you did at coming into being. Pretty amazing for a being who doesn’t even register on a pregnancy test yet. This doesn’t even take into account the probability of you not being a miscarriage, let alone the probability of you living to an age in a time and place that enables you to access the internet.
Your grade only defines you if you let it. You know what your grade tells me? It tells me that you can game the system well enough to get a D or a C or a B or whatever. No more, no less. And yet…
It doesn’t tell me if you know how to am rich or how to am poor. It doesn’t tell me whether you know what to say to someone who’s dying. It doesn’t tell me if you know how to practise the two most beautiful verbs in the English language, “to love” and “to help.”
It doesn’t tell me if you flunked history because you were too busy learning something that interests you. It doesn’t tell me whether you didn’t do the busywork because you were lazy or because your friend was suicidal. There is a world of difference between the two but that doesn’t show up on your report card. Why not?
In short, your grade doesn’t tell me anything worth knowing about you.
And you know what? I’m so confident that your grade is not your worth, that if some deity-like being appeared to me and offered the choice of never being able to know someone’s grades again and never knowing about their worth, I’ll pick ignorance of grades every single time. No regrets. Because I don’t declare that my friends must have a ‘B’ in maths in order to qualify. That would make me a pretty lousy friend, don’t you think?
Welcome to School Survival, Friend.. Once again, let me assure those of you who haven't been released from prison yet that your grades only define you if you let them. Maybe you failed in history because you already knew t' material so didn't do t' bullshit busywork but learnt basket-weaving' instead.

Who I'm not: I am not a D in English, I am not a B in IT. I am not a C in maths and science. I am not my grade.

Who I am: I am a teacher. I am a student. I am an independent learner. I am a poster here. I am a roleplayer. I am a reader. I am a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. I am someone who really ought to swim more. I am a poster in mythos scribes. I am a gaia online member. I am a neopets member. I am a member of MOOCs. I am unreasonably stubborn. I am persistent. I engage in probability revision. I am revising mocks (for about the fifth time around) I am a digital native.

Now it’s your turn. What things are worth knowin' about you, that don’t show up on school tests? What thing’s aren’t worth knowing about you but only serve to limit your potential and show up on school tests? In short: You’re not your grade, but who are you?

Don’t let your grades define you because they are linked to common core standards. You are an extraordinary multifaceted miracle. Don’t let your grade define you because they are standards. Who wants to be merely standard?

CERTIFICATE OF EMPOWERMENT

As bearer of this certificate you are no longer required to depend on the advice of experts. You may step back and view the entire world—not just your home, neighbourhood or town, but the whole Earth—as a learning experience, a laboratory containing languages (and native speakers thereof), plants, animals, history, geology, weather (real live weather, in the sky, not in a book), music, art, mathematics, physics, engineering, foods, human dynamics, and ideas without end. Although collections of these treasures have been located in museums for your convenience, they are to be found everywhere else, too.
This authorizes you to experiment; to trust and enjoy yourself; to rejoice when you surpass your past self in skill, knowledge or wisdom; to make mistakes, and to say "I don't know." Furthermore, you may allow yourself to experience boredom without finding someone to tell you what to do.
Henceforth, you shall neither be required nor expected to finish everything you start. Projects, books, experiments and plans may be discontinued as soon as something more interesting comes along (or for any other reason) without penalty, and picked up again at any time in the future (or never).
You may reclaim control of your daily life, and take what steps you feel necessary to protect yourself from physical, emotional or social harm.
You have leave to think your own thoughts
Each person who reads and understands this is authorized to extend these privileges to others, by reproducing and distributing this certificate or by creating another of his/her own design. Those who don't feel the need to obtain approval to experiment, to think, or to do things they've never seen others do are exempt, as they didn't need permission in the first place.

[1312]

Dat text, will read tomorrow.

[Vinsanity35]

Amen, I agree!!!!!!

[Trekkie_Aspie]

So come on Ledos and Vinsanity, who are you?

[brainiac3397]

Where's the TL;DR?

(Honestly, looks interesting and am most likely to read it soon. Perhaps when I'm done reclaiming Vice City with the Vercetti Gang )

[xcriteria]

Ahh, this is great. Sometimes it's worth digging through a brick wall of text!

This scene comes to mind:



Watch on YouTube

The conclusion of your text also reminds me of an opening to an ARG, like this one from Operation LAPIS, the paid Latin learning ARG:
http://www.practomime.com/lapis/lapis_online.php

"Demiurge's invitation" http://www.practomime.com/quidestlapis/753.html

And also Jane McGonigal's SuperBetter intro:

The Adventure Begins
http://vimeo.com/37189494

Or in general, the Call to Adventure

(On an editorial note, you have some "am"s that should be ""be", like "am released from prison" -- and I'd suggest some revision to the text between We Begin and Welcome... some might quibble with your odds, for example, but your point is well taken here!)

Keep up the good work.

[1312]

(05-21-2013 08:41 AM)Trekkie_Aspie Wrote:  So come on Ledos and Vinsanity, who are you?

The real question is, who are YOU? I know you tend to bump posts from dinosaur age, that's all, I've been here for a long time now, just rarely post.

[Trekkie_Aspie]

Ledos, I'm a lurker of the century. On average, I make a post about every other day. I joined in June 2007. Besides, who I am is up there already. So, come on, you two. Who. Are. You?

[Trekkie_Aspie]

I know, it needs proofreading. And it needs a note to the effect that the maths isn't literal.

[xcriteria]

I did a massive odds calculation like that one time. I focused more on the chances of being me as a person rather than being born in the first place. It really is mind-blowing to start thinking like that. Even more so when you factor in things like being a rare Myers-Briggs type like a lot of people on here are, or having extreme scores on measures like novelty seeking or living with access to the Internet or having thought of typing "I hate school" into google.

But yeah, I really like the approach! And the certificate part is really good as well. This is giving me ideas.

[Trekkie_Aspie]

Yeah, well, before you can be you as a person, you do have to conceived first! What wasn't taken into account was this: Even when sperm meets egg, there's still about a 70-75% chance that the zygote won't implant. Even after the pregnancy test shows your existence, there's still about a 1 in 3 risk that you're miscarried. Even after that, 1 in 160 births are stillborn. Of course, these statistics assume you are not conceived in whatever third-world country we're feeling sorry for right now.

[Vinsanity35]

(05-21-2013 08:41 AM)Trekkie_Aspie Wrote:  So come on Ledos and Vinsanity, who are you?

Someone who runs his own life an his own ambitions that won't let anything describe who I am. I am myself and I do my own thing and no one can say otherwise!

[Trekkie_Aspie]

Brilliant, Vin, now for Ledo.

[1312]

I'm nobody, according to my father.

But according to me, I'm a dude who is so lost "nonconforming"(well, you get it, easier to say in 1 word than write out what I actually do and that nonconformists are actually conformists, whatever, really) that it's kind of stupid self destruction path, or that's what I think... But I still will do what I want to do, most of time. I'm a dude who always tells others how much working sucks and business is way to go while never having worked and never have made a business and who just cba because literally, life is pointless, might as well just shoot myself, haha..


But anyways, you wrote nice text, I read it and I do understand there's little chance that I could had ever existed, but that doesn't matter, because I do exist and I'm not pleased with that! >(


(Excuse me if this is not what you wanted to hear. )