Grades and knowledge

April 19, 2018

Grades and knowledge

I think one of the worst things about modern education is our obsession with numbers and test grades.

I know for a fact that some people get 4.0s (perfect grades) but that doesn’t necessarily reflect their knowledge or proficiency in certain subjects, because they picked easy courses and lenient professors who are often easy graders to get perfect grades.

On the other hand, some of the smartest people I know hover below at mid 3.0 range but take challenging courses and are very intelligent–particularly the engineering students.

Our system makes us choose between good grades or actually learning and getting challenged. I know because I am in the midst of a stressful course registration and I’ve had to consciously think about whether or not I want to take a certain course that I am not interested in, from a professor who freely hands out easy A grades (anecdotal evidence), or a tough philosophy course from a knowledgeable professor.

And I chose knowledge.

I chose to take the challenging course that I know will be very difficult, and will ruin my current “perfect” 4.0. But I think that’s okay.

Afterall, the path of least resistance is a paradox.

Good Luck.

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Jeff A. Wang

Hi there! My name is Jeff and I write sometimes. I studied Business, Economics, and Philosophy at Villanova University, and am an incoming law student. I’ve studied abroad four times: Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Cambridge University. My hobbies include performing magic, writing, reading, basketball, MMA, traveling, and hiking.

3 responses to “Grades and knowledge”

Joe Murphy

April 20, 2018 at 12:38 am

Good choice.

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Stephanie Gray

May 4, 2018 at 11:06 am

In today’s school system kids are not measured by what they know but by how they do on testing. Testing may be the best means of measuring intelligence, but the exams are limited in themselves.When kids are not engaged they don’t preform well. Schools measure student knowledge with standardize testing and the A-F grading scale. Student knowledge should be measured with more tools than just exams. When measuring the knowledge that high school students have obtained during the a semester of learning a specific course, the grades should way more on, class interaction and discussions, group projects, individual projects, class work, homework and a small percentage on exams. The more a student is engaged in classroom the better the student outcome will be.

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1. Jeff A. Wang
  
  May 4, 2018 at 11:07 am
  
  I couldn’t agree more—very well said. Thank you for the comment Stephanie!
  
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