Thursday: Grades aren’t the be-all-end-all of the world

I still remember when I was a young and impressionable boy at the age of sixteen, just beginning my grade 11 year, and all I cared about were my grades as apposed to what I actually learned. Could you really blame me though? I lived in an environment that promoted education as apposed to learning. Where getting into a good university is the only thing that mattered, and not how much knowledge I gained.

Now, you may argue that learning is equivalent to obtaining a good grade. While this certainly may be true in some cases, I regret to say that in most of my experiences- personally, as well as with my friends and acquaintances, that it has not been. Instead, most of the time in my early years in high school whenever I obtained a relatively decent grade on a test, I could not remember much of anything after a week, or even a few months later.

I then confronted my Physics teacher about my problem, and ever since, I have never thought about my grades the same way. He told me that essentially, I shouldn’t be stressing about my grades so much, as apposed to the knowledge I am actually taking away from the courses.

It is truly unfortunate that most students fall into the trap of memorizing information, and then spitting out when the day of the test comes. Because when I think about going to school as having the opportunity to learn, and gain free knowledge, I find that I am much more successful than when I am constantly worried about what grade I get. However, in a world where university acceptance is the primary path to getting a well paying job, the students cannot be blamed in anyway

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-schuhmacher/why-grades-dont-really-ma_b_2682922.html