How Obsession With Grades Harms Children's Education

Students are motivated by the desire to gain social approval or avoid social sanctions. By making grades the cynosure of all eyes, students have obliquely been taught to prioritise them above all else. The pressure to stand out amongst or rise above peers, impacts the desire to learn for learning’s sake. As in every other sphere, there are more naturally able candidates who are the exemplar for academic, virtuous, athletic or any other interdisciplinary excellence. The pressure to match up to or to come up as an equal to these paragons often urges the others to adopt measures that wouldn’t be advisable in the longer run. When chasing superficial academic values, students tend to neglect the most important part of edification, studying instead of learning, choosing to needlessly chase a grade which isn’t an accurate description of their abilities.

The idea isn’t to deprecate grades and what they stand for. It is to highlight the attitude that we develop as a consequence which is inimical to our interests. Grades are the fundamental medium of conveying student mastery and a necessary part of education. What it is not, is an accurate description of a person’s worth and calibre. Getting caught up in the hysteria that surrounds grades and its subsequent effects is natural as a human being. But the most important thing is to not let it dishearten you. Grades cannot accurately determine how resourceful a person can be. In this day and age where people have multi-varied talents, grades are only a describing medium of a few aspects of your ingenuity. There are successful people who didn’t get good grades and made it big and conversely there are people who worked hard for their academics and made it far enough. What you do with your education and your passion is the common thread, not grades.