The Rant Book

intellectual elitism

helllloooooo

first of all i'd like to give myself a medal for not going on a major hiatus before updating again (it's been just over a week wow)

now although today is family day here in canada- surprisingly enough i'm not gonna rant about family life

and even though valentines day was yesterday- i'm not here to rant about that either (even though i would rather have an elephant shit in my mouth and get run simultaneously getting run over by a train. yeah, low key hate that stuff) 

BESIDES ALL THAT I AM NOT HERE TO RANT ABOUT ANY OF THAT STUFF

in fact, my title gives the rant away (wow, no decrypting chapter title, i'm on a roll here)

as for a definition (according to wikipedia lol totally reliable source): 

Elitism is the belief or attitude that some individuals who form an —a select group of people with a certain, intrinsic or worth, high intellect , specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes—are those whose influence or authority is greater than that of others; whose views on a matter are to be taken more seriously or carry more weight; whose views or actions are more likely to be constructive to society as a whole; or whose extraordinary skills, abilities, or wisdom render them especially fit to govern

now the key word here is high intellect, which essentially creates intellectual elitism: believing you're elite/better than people or someone due to your intellectual level.

now i get it: you're smart.  and of course, i'm not saying it's a bad thing- it's a great thing. now when you brag about your marks that's a whole other story, and it's even worse when you use that opportunity to also make others feel like absolute shit for whatever mark they got.

*cough cough* welcome to the world of IB *cough cough*

i'm not gonna lie okay: people in the IB usually have a personality: they're strong driven, hard working, and they are achievers, more importantly, over achievers.  now the problem with their strong driven part of this wonderful personality is that they are willing to do whatever it takes to get their marks...and if that means pushing people down so be it. (oh i forgot to add a quality: selfish.)

in my school specifically there's a 90s squad and if you can't guess by their stupid ass title, they are some of the smartest kids in the program.  and this all basically blew up in january, of course, around exam time.

the big thing that happened was that our history exam was going to be a proper HL History Paper 3 exam and that meant 3 essays in 2 and 1/2 hours.  and for review we were given 67 potential questions across the 3 areas of study: Russia, WWI and WWII.  so to say i was basically gonna shit my pants might have been an understatement.

SO of course 90s squad figures: why not go through all the essay questions and come up with the points, thesis and historiography for it?  they created a google doc, and personally invited those who were obviously considered worthy for the cause.  and of course we can all imagine who wasn't in this

me.

i knew i wasn't like them- i could get a mid 80 and be fine with it.  i was involved in so many things, and of course you can imagine who was crying the night before the history exam, realizing "i am beyond fucked." 

yup, me.

and the HILARIOUS part is, is that this group thought there was NOTHING WRONG. i get it- they didn't want to share their work because they had worked hard on it.  but they very bluntly told some people no because they knew they weren't smart enough for their whole thing.  and even more hilarious, a bunch of them (a few of them being "friends" lol) were TALKING ABOUT THIS DOC RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY GODDAMN FACE, PURPOSELY TAUNTING ME.

i get it- i'm not taking the regular math- the one with functions, calculus and algebra. but then again, why would i be stupid and kill myself with that math when i don't need it? i don't want to do anything in the field of science or math for god's sake i want to be a lawyer! so the math studies seemed like a better fit for me in the first place.  same thing happened when i decided to take economics instead of an extra science- cool thing is i don't need an extra science- but economics is a good thing to have under your belt if you want to do business or for me, i figured it might help in my future with coporate law

AND PEOPLE STILL THINK I'M STUPID.

yup, people think i'm some dumbo who truly doesn't belong in this program. and it's all because i take the math studies and i want to be a lawyer.

lol funny story. so there's this course called Theory of Knowledge (aka philosophy but IB style) and there's these things called knowledge claims liek "i know the sky is blue" (well that's not rlly a good one but you get the idea)

so anyways this happened....

me: yeah so Teacher gave us those newspaper articles to do the knowledge claims...

friend who's w/ me in that class: oh what's one of yours?

me: well she said to do a claim pertaining to the article, so i said "I know that Bogata is a growing city due to it's economic growth and tourism industry

Bitch friend A (whos in the other TOK class): OMG YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!/1;1!!1 YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO THEM MORE GENERAL NOT LIKE THAT

me: um but my teacher wanted us to do them this way-

Bitch friend B: yeah but you're doing it WRONG

 now we then got taught that knowledge claims are meant to be more general so that they apply to different scenarios, so i can change my knowledge claim up there to "i know that an urban area's growth can be at the cause of economic growth in an industry" so that it would apply not only to Bogata but to any other up and coming city.

now the key thing to note about this scene was that the friends put me under fire because i'm obviously the "dumb" one of the group (but i've been on honour roll twice now??and i'm gonna make it again???)- therefore, I'm obviously doing everything wrong right (even though literally the other person in that class was right beside me and THEY SAID NOTHING UGH) and more importantly if my teacher told me to do something a certain way i'm gonna do it their way- it's their class, and they're marking me.

*sigh* 

ya there's a lot more i can say but i'll leave it at this (it's over 1000 words lol)

but yeah if you're smart just please don't shove it down people's throats like we get it, you're intelligent let us not necessarily 90s kids have a break okay?

have a good week!

xx