Introduction
The current perception about the importance of grades is quite baffling. The academic fraternity has placed so much importance on high grades and putting so much focus on grades, most of the students in various institutions are missing the purpose of education.
Good education is often quoted as a major prerequisite to a good job and consequently a good life. Education is not considered decent enough until one has gone to college and graduated. With such an understanding of college education importance, many students torture themselves with books hoping to get good grades to get into college (Pope, 14). The students become so wrapped in grades that they start viewing them as value statements of personal worth. The students view the grades as the foundation of a decent future where one will have a good job and lots of money.
It is therefore, very obvious that the concepts of grades have been understood. Grades are not that important because there is greater value in education than just grades (Pope, 21). If many of the students in college who have achieved good grades as a result of hard work were informed that will not acquire a job after graduation, most of them would quit. This goes on to show how misguided the notion about grades is. Education is more than just grades. It is about knowing oneself, knowing the world that surrounds one and trying to figure out one’s place in the world (Terkel, and Terkel, 32).
Grades can be very deceiving. Suppose one met two individuals whose characteristics are unknown save for their GPA? One would assume that the individual with the higher GPA is the smarter one. However, this assumption is very inaccurate. A person can be smarter, but may have not worked hard enough and his grades may therefore lower. In addition, one cannot be sure that one worked harder than the other because grades are not based on effort alone. It is not possible to tell who learned or gained more without knowing what the teacher’s standards were. A grade on an individual level is based to a large extent on the perceptions, the standards and the whim of the examining teacher. Different teachers and educator’s weight and reward test scores, behavior, class participation, homework completion etc. differently ("Thoughts on Education Policy: Why Grades Are Stupid."). For instance, if different teachers were to mark a single assignment, they would give the paper different grades. Different teachers would also have differing perceptions about one student. In simple terms, a grade is not a valid measure of education smartness or intelligence (Terkel, and Terkel 43). This does not however mean that grades are devoid of utility or meaning. It just means that their meaningfulness and precision is far from individuals often assume.
In institutions of higher learning such as college, grades are not the ones that predict success as many would think. It is rather the accompanying skills, for example, how to navigate and understand education systems. Therefore, a good student is one who achieves good grades, not because he must, but because he has understood the content being taught to him. Good students do not torture themselves with cramming book content because they want a good and money in the future. They simply work hard to learn about themselves learn about the world around and essentially improve themselves (Pope 62). This outlook makes grades to start losing the enormous novelty that has been attached to them so widely. When greater value of education is placed on the personal returns rather than the financial returns, the grades become less of a value statement of the future and more of a trivial part or element of knowing oneself. This does not mean that one should not work hard in school. Working hard will obviously improve one’s grades, and it is also well known that working hard is part of the self-improvement process. What it means is that there is absolutely no need to lose one’s mind because of a disappointing or low grade that one might have had. A grade is not commentary on one’s self-value. It is also not a comment on the future success of an individual in the “real world”. There are many who have achieved very high grades but once exposed to the real world, they have been overly overwhelmed and have failed to make it (Terkel, and Terkel, 56).
Grades have so far managed to have to have a solid place within the education fraternity. They have been deemed to be a crucial part of education. Grades should however, not be viewed as an important part of self-esteem or self-worth. They are not necessary because they do not define students and indeed the entire human race. What define a student or a person who has passed through an education system, is not the grades that he or she achieved. He or she is rather defined by the change that the education brought or made in the individual. So what if one got a C on a test? Did the whole experience make one better person overall” If the answer is yes, then the grade does not matter and is not necessary.
Works Cited
Pope, Denise C. "doing School": How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. Print.
Terkel, M, and S. N. Terkel. What's an "A" anyway: How important are grades. New York: Franklin Watts, 2001. Print.
"Thoughts on Education Policy: Why Grades Are Stupid." N.p., 14 Oct. 2008. Web. 25 Feb. 2014. <http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2008/10/why-grades-are-stupid.html>.
