FACTUAL HEARSAY?

The whole truth and nothing but the truth. Nowadays, youth is very engaged in gossip and rumors. Most people are hungry for issues and stories with controversy because they’re “interesting”. Even if they are not involved with that specific event, people tend to butt in with others’ problems. Some justify their hunger for such controversial issues and rumors by believing that what they know is the truth.

People judge a story by the things that they only know. Biased people rely on the first piece of information without knowing the other side of the story, but there are always two sides to every story.

Gossip is telling people’s personal lives without their consent and thus, this problem especially nowadays is inevitable. It can hurt people, break relationships, and damage reputations.

According to research, it is natural for humans to pay attention to gossip. Some people try to justify gossip by saying it’s a good thing because gossip can help with dangerous situations. After all, it will reach the ears of people easily and gossiping is a social skill that helps people survive in a cruel social world. It is said to be a relic of our evolutionary history, but instead of gossiping, we should share stories with consent and facts.

SOLEIL AWAKENED

We don’t like being involved in gossip and being the talk of the town so why do we gossip about others and become one-sided?

There are cases wherein gossip contains only facts and nothing but the truth. In that case, is gossip still gossip if it’s true? Disregarding the fact of it being true, gossip is still gossip. We don’t like being involved in gossip and being the talk of the town so why do we gossip about others and become one-sided? Gossiping is likely a form of entertainment for the young generation, but it is not encouraged to do. People often justify what they are doing by saying they are only telling and spreading the truth, but even if it is the truth, it is still gossip. Gossip may appear harmless but it can be destructive, especially when mentioning names. If we don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Everyone gossips but we should remember to always have the veracity of the story and tell facts instead of lies.

Normal

Life would be easier if you’re normal but it’s better when you’re free. It’s not a choice. No one wakes up and decides they want to be discriminated against today.

Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. This may be an excerpt from the United States Constitution but it is a universal truth we all want to live by. Murder, theft, assault: these are things that are rightfully illegal and prohibited by law. These are selfish extensions of one’s freedom overstepping another person’s. Why is this the club that same-sex unions join for a lot of people?

Is it so wrong for two people to share tax? A home? A name? Is it the worst thing in the world to love? Why can’t a person pursue their happiness when it comes in a body of the same kind?

As of writing, there are 29 countries in the world that recognizes marriage for all. Meaning, only less than a quarter of the world allows same-sex unions. That’s a long way from fair but it is a start. Some countries cannot even begin to recognize that just like every other human being, homosexual people are also in aid of their basic human rights. And that’s an even longer way from equality.

The ability to marry the person they love dearly is something that is held from them. Marriage is the start of a family and queers are just as capable as any man and woman to have their own. Marriage has nothing to do with conservative beliefs or religion, it’s only ever about love. It is a sense in life, no matter with whom you take that path with.

How does legalizing a marriage between the same gender affect a man and woman’s union? It does not. Egos and non-logical beliefs are not to be considered in the decision-making for things that’s bound to change one’s world. It makes no utter difference in a heterosexual person’s life if two people of the same gender get married.

There should simply be no room for understanding as to how and why there are people against a matrimony outside their own. Lucky you, you get to live happily ever after until death do you part.

Life would be easier if you’re normal but it’s better when you’re free. It’s not a choice. No one wakes up and decides they want to be discriminated against today. It is real, love is real. And it’s about time the world knows that.

Freedom is a right everyone is equally entitled to. I could talk about all the things that I already know. But there are things I’ll never understand. What is it that you get from the hate you give?

To love is to live, to learn that is your overdue need. Love could be anything.

The day everyone realizes that is the day we are actually free. To love is a literature, it is a story that starts with one page and lives on until the end of days. Your book is yours to write.

Maybe Anthony Patch was right, “the victor belongs to the spoils,” but as the great Gatsby believed in the green light; tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… and one fine morning.

They have been lying to the students. Academic grades do not define their future, let alone their present. A paper stained with a few numbers cannot fully empathize with the students’ differing circumstances and struggles they have to face on their own. Test papers bleeding with red ink never gave people with varying types of intelligence the appreciation and assurance that they are capable of a lot of things. These cunning numbers unapologetically made the youth numb and unmotivated to learn, making them feel like robots ranked according to how much of themselves they sacrificed to please this faulty system. With that, finding a way to eradicate this misleading belief would ease the burden of the students, letting them shatter limitations and pursue new horizons of opportunities to grow as an individual and as a member of society.

It is an unspoken agreement within the educational field that feedback is a powerful communicator of an individual’s progress. According to Chamberlin, Yasue, and Chiang, a comparative study showed that grades did not enhance academic motivation. Instead, grades increased anxiety and the desire to avoid difficult courses. This system also encourages a transparent ranking of the students’ academic performance, leading to comparison and pressure from other people including themselves as they base their worth on their academic standing. Like what Gurmeet Choudhary said; “We always thought that we were doing it for ourselves but actually we were doing it for others.” In my case, I was raised to believe that the point between below average and best is non-existent. Academic grades definitely took a toll on my mental health due to external factors that are out of my reach. Contrarily, narrative assessments met the fundamental psychological needs of the students and improved their motivation by offering useful feedback, encouraging cooperation, and building trust between teachers and students. With this method of assessment, teachers can further elaborate on what the students’ lacking points are and how they can further improve in these areas. This reveals how grading, in contrast to narrative assessments, is an incompetent communicator of a student’s performance and learning behaviors, and that it could be harmful if used on pupils according to BohatALA. Due to the anxiety and pressure brought by academic grades, the once-ignited spark was lost. The students’ willingness to learn slowly dies down as schools suddenly become the opposite of what they are supposed to be — a space wherein students should be comfortable making mistakes and learning from them. Rather, they resort to academic dishonesty, still seeing themselves as principled people by justifying their actions for reasons they see as acceptable. Some do so because they don’t recognize the value of the tasks they are given or when the materials contribute a high percentage to their overall grades such as major exams. High-achieving learners who are under pressure to achieve perfection may resort to cheating to get an advantage over the competition or prevent a single poor test result from ruining months of painstaking work. For instance, at Stuyvesant High School, both students and staff blamed the school’s endemic dishonesty on the cutthroat environment. People carrying the burden of high expectations are also more prone to exaggerate their performance by cheating so that academic grades could quench their thirst for toxic validation as stated by Simmons. While attempting to prevent

These cunning numbers unapologetically made the youth numb and unmotivated to learn, making them feel like robots ranked according to how much of themselves they sacrificed to please this faulty system.