by Saadia Hassan

Sow Grades, Wow Life – A Myth!

Grades vs Learning-

Who made the notion of exams? What is more important grades vs learning? Who decides the significance of marks/grades? Is it really so beneficial? If yes, what exactly is important, the marks or the learning you attained even if you didn’t score full? Just engineering and medicine, or a lot more options?

Let us slowly seep through the problem with education. I read a post somewhere that said, “80’s professors teach 90’s kids from 60’s textbooks”. Now that’s an issue at hand, isn’t it? After all this, the institution and parents expect excellence from students. Getting 10/10 doesn’t fetch you jobs you love, getting 7.5 or equivalent with the required knowledge in the field might. I’m sure the person who invented grades did it with better intentions. I don’t even understand how these textbooks we read matter so much when those hardly contain anything of what we use in today’s life. Why do students even bother to get cent per cent marks, when all they look for in an interview is their knowledge and skills?

Grades matter, but not the most.

They cannot decipher who you are. Edison was a dropout but aren’t we using his inventions today? Who graded him? We take pride in telling that he was a dropout hitherto an excellent scientist. Without any backing, he distinguished himself. With so much foundation, why can’t we? Don’t let these grades or the constriction of them let your spirit down. That is merely somebody else’s way of checking your talent and knowledge which shouldn’t mean a lot to us. Study to learn, not to gain marks. You know better how talented you are even if you do not qualify for their tests. You don’t even have to, you know.

India being a country with diverse religions and cultures, fails to give diverse options to students. A country is about its people, so maybe the people fail to see and relish their choices. There are talented students all around us, yet they don’t get into it as a career option because of numerous reasons like support and value.

Hobbies can turn into passions

Take for example hobbies. Yes, hobbies can turn into passions, but a mere hobby won’t provide the drive and determination and fight necessary to do something for a living. A hobbyist photographer will love the click of the shutter and the magic of a great image. A passionate photographer will continue to pursue that magic despite bad days, early mornings, tough clients, expensive equipment, depleted savings, hours of editing, workflow minutiae, business headaches, and all other things that would stop a hobbyist in their tracks. To distinguish if interest is a hobby or a passion, applying those as subjects in school would help because the student will be spending ample time doing his favourite stuff and will know how much he’s drawn to it.

There were days when the people in Olympics couldn’t get into it because they weren’t paid and family needed financial support. But now there is all kind of opportunities, all we have to do is utilize parents to play a major role in this. All the parents want good for their children and in the process, they forget what gives them happiness. We earn to live but today the case is different, people live to earn.

Grades & Marks Don’t Define Your Future

Marks and grades are a critical problem, a cherry on the top. The students who want to score will score eventually, but what about the student whose heart doesn’t lie in trigonometry or metamorphosis, whose heart lies in the beauty of nature, arts and stuff like that. So many options but people are blinded by the rules of society. We should remember that we gotta live for ourselves but not others, when we’re in a crisis those people from society won’t come to your rescue. There’s just one life to live and we should make sure that we give it our best and fullest. Try random tasks, laugh at silly jokes and smile at little things and do what you love.

Lastly, here’s a request for the parents. Please do not push your dreams on your children because you never know, they can do the same with their children and it will repeat. Let them pursue their dreams and the best will be the outcome or we’ll never find the true talents of your child. For example, the hobbies of students may hold a lot of hidden yet valued talent, provided it is nurtured like academic subjects.

As a part of the closing note, I would like to quote that, often, it’s not the big bets that pay off but the small ones that build up over time. If we do what we love, we’ll never work a day in our lives.

Author – Saadia Hassan

ProTeen’s career counselling services for students helps them in identifying their strengths & interests and guides them in making the right career decision.

43 Comments

  • Pooja Purohit
    December 29, 2019

    Thank you for breaking the myth for a lot of people.

  • Disha
    December 26, 2019

    Goopd grades are important but one mustn’t dwell on it!!! Just work hard!!

  • Harsh Ranjan
    December 16, 2019

    Yes, it definitely helps when we let the children to the colours of their lives themselves

  • Dipriya Karmokar
    December 11, 2019

    Albert Einstein has rightly said,” Education is what remains after we forget what we have learnt in school.”

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