by Aditi Chawla

Hobbies ? Grades ? You !

 

Do marks and grades define an individual’s strengths ?

There’s a popular saying which goes like, “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”. It’s true, the way we evaluate people’s skills and abilities makes about as much sense as judging a fish by its climbing ability. No one is same, everyone is different.

Earlier, marks and grades were the thing that everyone cared of. No matter which grade, every student has suffered the pressure of not getting enough marks because some “sharma ji ka ladka” scored more than them. Most of the time, it’s not about grades also, it’s mostly about taking the science stream in 11th grade, which mostly is the choice of the parents’ and not of the children. But to take science, they have to score above 90 otherwise “sar sharam se jhuk jayga” (their image will bow down in shame).

The marks that everyone goes after, only comes through the skill of ‘memorization’. The one who has this skill can easily score above 90, but those who don’t, score lower and are looked down upon. However, most of the time when people score good, remember nothing after 2-3 days, and whatever they ‘memorized’ for the test is now gone with no education whatsoever.

A good example from my own life: In my class every female student scored 30 out of 40 in the subject computer, whereas most of the male students scored 25 or lower. This shows that maybe the female students were good with computers in general, but that is not the case. The thing that were good in was “rattafying” (rote memorizing) the whole chapters and not with the actual computers. On the other hand, the male students who scored less were excellent with computers. Some of them even knew how to hack one. Not being sexist and all, but this is a live example and difference between scoring good and being smart. This is a perfect example of how grades/marks don’t define a person’s ability or strengths or intelligence in any way.

Following your passion, learning and educating yourself is more important than memorizing stuff just for the sake of it and not actually learning.

In conclusion, no marks/grades/system can define your intelligence and smartness; and similarly, your intelligence and smartness does not dictate your grades.

Shouldn’t “hobbies” be subjects taught in schools and colleges ?

“The ones who don’t chase their dreams in their life are the ones working for them who do.” This is a perfect saying for people nowadays. There are so many people who work in nine to five jobs and hate it, on the other hand there are handful of people who took risk, followed their dreams, accomplished them, and are now happy and their own boss.

Mostly the people who are in the first category of 9-5 jobs are the ones who had dreams and ambitions, but were too afraid to go after them and complete them, because no one told them how to. This is where the role of a school takes place in a person’s life. If people had options in their early life of selecting subjects based on their hobbies and passion, there would be so many people living a life of their dreams. The school do teach lessons on history, comprehension, science, maths, etc, but what about the subject children are interested in? Music, arts, photography, sports, cooking are just a few to name among them. All these subjects are not only neglected, but many schools do not even have these subjects, neglecting and ignoring them is another level.

This whole system neglecting these subjects cost so many children their dreams. For example: if a person, Shreya, likes music and is keen on learning and practicing it, she should have the resources to do so. If she is good and practices enough, who knows, she could be another Shreya Ghoshal of India.

But because the school refuses to do so, she remains just another girl who likes music as a hobby and can do nothing about it. Sure she can learn it as a hobby after school, but what is she doesn’t have enough money to do so. If she has money, what about the time she is using in learning it. If schools provided that opportunity to her, she could use that time to practice and learn more about it or about other things as well. This change could not only transform her whole life, but also so many lives around her.

This is only a small example of a simple girl who loved music. What about other children, their passion, their interests, their hobbies? Just a change of education and it’s curriculum can change so many lives and futures, and for the better. This change will not only be good for the students, but interesting as well. They will want to know more and learn more because the things they are studying is of their interests. There would be so much less failures because students will be studying what they want to, and not because they have to. This can bring a whole revolution of change to students as most people will follow their passion and will be successful in it, because of the kind of help and support their school and families provided them with.

In my opinion, hobbies should be mandatory as a subject and should be taught in every school/college.

Author – Aditi Chawla

21 Comments

  • Aniket Mhatre
    April 1, 2020

    Well explained about how hobbies and grade should me manage properly !

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