Marks, Marx, Marcs, Marks.

There are Deutschmarks, former currency of Germany and some bits of Yougoslavia. Not a Bad Thing, but the Euro is a Better Thing.

There was Karl Marx, the forefather of communism, a.k.a. Old Major in Animal Farm by George Orwell. Usually, called a Bad Thing.

I only ever knew one person called Marc, smashing fellow (Good Thing), he's in NY again now (Bad Thing).

But I want to talk about are school marks, or grades, as the yanks call them. In my country (p.s., having just re-read this whole thing, I know realise how old I sound. I'm so sorry.), there are all out of a possible (?) 20. So, in maths, for instance, there could be 20 questions, one point each, or some variant on that. Or in sports twenty shots at a goal one point per succes. But then comes the problem of languages. Specifically spelling-oriented tests (dictées as we used to call them), ok, one mistake = -1 and a bad mistake = -2 et cetera. ok. But we don't do those anymore (And a damn shame it is too, some of the spelling at our level is dreadful. Not to mention the fact that it saved my french average!), all we do nowadays are essays, opinions based on textual evidence, or even just personal experience and taste (Soon I will put up my first dissertation with the question, and you'll see what I mean.). How the hell are teachers supposed to state that one opinion is worth more than another? Surely this goes against what they are cramming into our brains every day? And I know that what they're actually marking is the way arguments are presented, the potency of the examples used and all that stuff, but surely that shouldn't count for nearly quite so much as it currently does? Surely, as one could reasonably expect, they should be looking at what is being said, as opposed to mereely how it is said? To me, content is worth much more than style, in that style is more eaily faked, but content is what really matters. Message over medium. I'm sure I'm not the only one who, in countless situations, has had a great idea shunned ignored, dereciated and ultimately nullified by some "teacher" who does not which to rethink their opinion in light of new data and observations postdating their own studies, in the name of conforming to rigid criteria set by someone who really doesn't know what they're on about. But enough of general rants, here's some pretty telling numbers about why I have no faith whatsoever in the system.

In 4eme, I went from 6 average in the first term, to 20 in the third, via 13. That's a steady increase of 7 points per term. One could think that I mst have gotten into shape pretty damn well that year, but in fact, the opposite is the case. At the end of the previous season, I had given up both my weekly judo AND football practise (all in all about 6 hours of sport per week). My general state of fitness was in considerable decline, despite my having taken up playing the drums (which honestly does not count as sport, really.) The way I achieved such a miracle on paper? A fluke. 2 in fact. Just after the first test (the very next lessn, actually), which I had failed miserably because it was endurance and I had a headache so I got 6 for, I did my ankle in. 2 months off. Second term went normal-ish, with the normal-ish sports like badminton and basketball. The third term, we did "expression corporelle", in which I got 20 because I'm so arty (and because my group's was the only one that was any good), and then in football I also got 20, through some freaky incident in which I managed to score both goals, not hit any traffic cones AND do the whole thing really quickly, for the first time ever. The very same lesson I broke my wrist as goalkeeper. And that's how I went from 6 to 20 in the same year.

Now, you could say that that was in collège, and that now it's different, but I move it's not.
Last year, in geography (more on that later... cor I've really got a lot to say about that class, and it's not just last year, it seems it's always going to be this crap... no!), I used to work pertty, hard until in the second term I got ana average of 9. This surprised me somewhat, in that I worked fairly hard (by my standards, which admittedly are pretty low), paid attention in class, took notes... the whole enchilada (mmm... mexican food...). Whereas everyone else basically did bog all the whole time and were pulling of 15s and 16s. So I decided the lazy-boy might work. Couldn't hurt, and I did it with all my other lessons, so why not? And of course, third term, I got 13.5 average. That's +4.5 in one term. In lycée.

So overall, Marks are Bad Things.