Ironies

IN SCHOOL, it does not count if it’s not right. In life, it does not count if it’s not wrong.

In school, you are taught lessons first. Afterwards, you are given exams, quizzes and various types of challenges about those lessons. Then, those exams, quizzes and the like get corrected by your instructors. As they get scored, only your correct answers get counted. If you screw up with your

answers—meaning you committed more errors than you should—you either get a low score or you fail.

In life, you are given a challenge in order to learn a lesson. However, there are no professors, textbooks, dictionaries and other reference materials that will tell you what to do. You have to figure things out by yourself in order to really learn. You may seek help from others, but if you don’t help yourself, you’ll never move forward.

If you fail or do badly in school, it is not the end yet. Some teachers are kind enough to give you make-up exams in case you did not make it to the passing grade. Sometimes, if you still don’t make it to the “tres” in a certain subject, you still have the option to retake that subject in the next semester and make things better.

In real life, however, you cannot turn back the hands of time. Once spoken, the words you’ve said cannot be taken back. There is no CTRL+Z to undo actions that have been done. Every action you do has its lifetime consequences, so you have to be careful at all costs.

In school, you can control your speed if you want to. You can press your fast-forward button and accelerate if you are smart enough. If you wish to pause for a while to either take a break or go on a leave, it can work, too. Just present an excuse letter and a valid reason. If you wish to stop for whatever reason, the choice is yours.

Real life, on the other hand, does not present such options. You must go with the flow. If you don’t do so, you will be facing consequence after consequence.

In school, you are graded and rated according to your performance as a student. How well you perform in your studies usually reflects the grades that you receive, and vice-versa. To most people, the higher your grade is, the smarter you are (though grades don’t always define intelligence). Nevertheless, you are graded as a student, but not as a person.

In real life, there are no grading systems. There are no numbers that define who you are. Real life does not give you grades or a transcript of records. Instead, it teaches you the most important lessons you need to learn.

In school, he or she who never encountered failure (gets top grades, aces examinations, etc.) is a genius.

In real life, he or she who never encountered failure is a total failure him/herself. Ironic? But why? It is because he or she failed to fail. See? Nobody’s perfect.

A “bagsak” in school and a “bagsak” in real life are two different things. One ought to know the difference.

Flo Zauleck, 17, is a first year computer science student at the University of the Philippines Cebu.