Blog Assignment 3 - Brainwashed

The full article can be found here http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/66.01.Brainwashed

       “Acknowledging the Lizard” is all about confronting your fears. It's about facing that voice in your head that says, “Don't do it, you could fail. Don't do it, you could get laughed at, ridiculed. Just fall in line and don't make a fuss.” This voice can't be stopped, you can't get rid of it. So the only thing to do is to acknowledge it and then ignore it.

        Fail. Failure isn't about not succeeding, it's about learning; it's about taking the experience you've gained and applying it to the next venture. You have to be ready to fail, you have to be all right with failure in order to truly succeed.

       Learn. This is the linchpin of all of these lessons. You have to learn in order to do anything. Not learn like you did in school, because that wasn't school, this is school. Life is school. So it's time to stop going on what you think you know and learning what you actually need to know.

       These blogs, are pointless. I don't mean that as an insult to the instructor or anyone involved in the creation of them, I actually find a lot of what we read to be quite interesting and even enlightening in a lot of respects. For example, without these blogs I would have never been turned on to the “Brainwashed” article and I found that article to be very interesting and maybe even inspiring. However, ironically through introducing me to these concepts via the blogs, they've made me come to realize the insignificance of these entries. What did the article say about school? That it was all a design to create compliant workers who would do mediocre work over and over again until they died, I guess I fail to see how these blog entries are any different. There is no challenging of ideas here, there is no opportunity to “Acknowledge the Lizard” we are forced into a structured lesson that requires us to do these blog assignments, or else we fail. The lizard wins. And the most opportunity these blogs seem to give us to be “creative” is what type of font we want to present it in. They are still a requirement; which is teacher for, “Do it or you're failed, jerk.” I feel as though this is the same sort of formula that I've seen my entire life, these exercises aren't inspiring us to be creative, not when you put such tight restrictions and confines on what we may do. 

       How are these blogs even graded anyway? Not on our ability to be creative but on our ability to follow directions, that is completely counter-intuitive to the point of this article. However, this is a class and we are in college, and a degree only means something if the person holding it was actually required to do something that displays skill, something that proves they deserve the degree. I mean I know I'd hate it if my doctor was just graded on his ability to “give it his best shot”. So, with that being said I think a much more valuable use of time and energy would just to be give a lot more options in the blogs. Don't make them so confined, and actually give the students more free reign. Some kids don't like writing papers (i.e. me) and they would rather express their opinions via video or song or clarinet solo or whatever the hell you might be into. So I'm not suggesting you completely leave them open for kids to do anything they want because then, how would you grade it? Based on who's most creative? That's nearly impossible to define let alone grade, but definitely more freedom would be more productive and I think would lend itself to much more interesting posts that the students actually might care about.