Education/Schooling Continued….Grades

Overheard a guy talking on his phone (Mid 30′s) to who sounded like his mother….He was apologizing for being short with this person during the last conversation a couple days before because he was upset about a grade he got on one of his papers for school.  Then he preceded to tell his mom that it doesn’t matter because he still has an A-.

This made me sick.  For two reasons:

1) This guy’s passion is writing.  He was torn down by a professor who’s job it is to critique someone else’s art/work.  Just because the professor doesn’t agree with it does not mean its not great.  Based on what standards? Personal bias or preference of the professor? A pre-made checklist of what’s good or bad?

2) He still had an A- after the bad grade.  What is a grade? It’s just a stupid letter that is supposed to determine how well we know a subject.  That’s all school is that’s all we are striving for is to capture that all important letter A.  This is wrong.  Instead of being able to do things the way we want we are forced to do them a certain way with guidelines just so we can get a letter. And this letter then determines who is the best “student” or “person for the job”

If you master this system you learn to cut corners just to get that letter.  Where the one’s who are thinking outside the box and doing things differently are punished.  The grading system discourages creativity and new thinking.  Its a flawed system but our entire society is based on those “letters.”  Let’s reward creativity not beating and mastering a system that is education/schooling.