Success Stories: Mandatory or Optional?
Almost everyone just says 'yes' and writes one. And not-so-strangely, all the success stories read almost exactly the same. "I had fun on this course and I learned a lot." I mean, word for word. I remember leafing through the pile of success stories at one point and wondering why they were all exactly the same. Even at weekly Friday after-school graduation, when the teachers from each class would round up some students to give verbal success stories, the words were exactly the same. "I had fun on this course and I learned a lot."
At one point, when I was testing my limits, I finished a course that I had done OK on, but not particularly liked that much. After the exam was wrapped up, the examiner asked me the usual - would you like to write a success story?
"Naw, that's OK."
She stood up, grabbed a success story form and slammed it down on the desk in front of me and said, "Just write one."
I wrote one. "I had fun on this course and I learned a lot."
I never pushed this very hard, because I felt had bigger ideological fish to fry at the time - but now this strikes me as kinda... I dunno. Wrong somehow. Shouldn't a success story only be written if you really made so much progress that you personally decide you want to share your wins with everyone?