Some Thoughts On Grades
By: Craig Axford
Tags: Philosophy, Learning, Psychology, Self Improvement, Education

Some Thoughts On Grades

The true measure of a well-rounded education is below 4.0

Photo by Nikhita S on Unsplash

School is supposed to be about learning. Tests to determine whether we’ve learned how to do something may be unavoidable, especially when it comes to the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. But even in those cases, grades should be part of a broader context that includes a degree of playfulness and creativity.

As a student myself, it’s impossible not to sound at least a little self-serving when it comes to the topic of grades, exams, and all the other various methods employed to evaluate us. Believe me, I understand society has an interest in making sure the desired information has been retained and that we are capable of using it appropriately. The certificate we frame to hang on our office wall needs to signal much more than merely the fact that we were able to scrape together enough money to pay our tuition.

But as great as our need to know that the professionals we encounter have some idea what they’re talking about is, it’s at least as important that the fields they work in be populated with a few rebels who are willing to challenge prevailing opinions now and then. This doesn’t mean adopting skepticism for skepticism’s sake or rejecting the value of a good education. Rather, it calls for a strategic skepticism that rejects the orthodoxy that existing knowledge is sufficient.

We want our heretics to possess an understanding of conceptual weak spots and have the ability to look at old problems from new perspectives. Fostering the kind of playfulness, irreverence, and creativity this demands can be difficult in a traditional school setting. However, while it may be unrealistic to expect schools to abandon grades as an evaluation tool it’s not unrealistic to encourage students (and the rest of us) to stop seeing their grade point average as an adequate measure of their intelligence and potential future productivity.

Developing a firm understanding of a subject doesn’t always translate into an easy A. Arguably, for those truly willing to explore the philosophical and scientific thickets that lie at the heart of virtually every field it never does. Though Einstein developed the theory of relativity only after initially gaining an understanding of Newtonian physics, he did not endear himself to all his professors in the process. As his knowledge of physics grew, so did his understanding of the limits of the Newtonian worldview. His willingness to challenge settled thinking and ask difficult questions others could not answer made him a very difficult student indeed.

Likewise, Darwin was only able to formulate the theory of evolution by first becoming well informed about contemporary thinking about biology and geology. But first, he was a terrible medical student and a rather mediocre would be divinity student with a tendency to take unrelated classes and develop hobbies like beetle collecting simply because he found them interesting. Had Darwin attended university now instead of in the 1820s, he could very easily have found himself enrolled for years piling up student debt as he struggled to select a major.