Grades- What is the true meaning of them?

                                                          
                                                                          Grades

What do grades really represent? Our knowledge? Our just how we memorize information? Maybe even both. I believe grades simply reflect on how we take the information given to us and use it on work. Grades show what skills we have mastered and how well we use them. It also provides teachers information on where we should work harder and gives them a sort of guide on what to teach us next.  It also shows the student what they may want to practice a bit more on.


 Our current grading system is on a 100 point scale with letters to represent a standard form of our knowledge. My opinions on this is negative. This system of grading does not accurately show where we are in education. Many kids can get the same grade but it doesn't necessarily mean that they are all in the same level of knowledge. If our world was perfect every student would have a their own personal teacher but that's not the case. A teacher has to judge many students at once on there academical abilities. An easier and more accurate way of doing this could be first off removing the letter grade system. From personal experience I hated letter grades. In elementary school a 92 or under was a B. I would feel horrible when I would get a 92, 91, or 90. But once I entered middle school where 90-100 was an A I didn't feel as bad when getting a 90-92. But in general getting a 90-92 in either middle school or elementary school was the same. Letter grading to me is almost the same as stereo typing in my opinion. As for the 100 point system, I am okay with it. 

The current grading system does not accurately represent our skills or knowledge. But like I said before, in a perfect world every student would have their own personal teacher. The current grading system I feel is not as accurate as it could be. By labeling all our work with a letter and a number does not pinpoint where we really are in our learning progress. For example I may guess on a lot of  questions and by luck get a good grade, but that does not truly show that I understood the content. 

I want our grading system to transfer to a combination of both the current based grading system and a standards based system. This way we would have a way of knowing where we went wrong and an excellent way in resolving it!

These are my thought on grades!

Based on Sir Ken Robinson speech and I completely agree. School are killing creativity. I have many reasons to why I believe this. First, schools have a very controlled environment where usually the is only one correct answer. I feel this does not let kids discover new ways and ideas to things and are destructing the creative ability. As a student myself I can say that I could probably come up with 10 different ways to use a pencil then i could now. I feel the basic rule to stay in the lines of a drawing is destructing creativity itself. Why not color outside the lines? It may become worth something one day rather than a plain drawing where anyone or anybody could replica. There should be many more learning strategies out there beside the basic math, language, and science.

I say we should take our learning environments to the next level. For example maybe instead of answer a plain multiplication problem we could see different strategies to solve it then the traditional steps. We must take baby steps to rediscover the creativity that is blessed in humans but in order to that schools will have to change the their teaching strategies. Have you ever had a child ask you why? to everything sometimes you just dont have an answer.  I think this is the small hint of creativity in a child. Those questions that they ask dont need to have an answer. But a child should not let go of it quickly but embrace it and embrace the creativity in themselves. So instead of answering with a "just because" or "because I said so" why not ask "what to do you think"?

With such a lack of creativity in schools we may not have many inventors or new products in the future. Im not talking about an iphone 9 or a new laptop. Im talking new original products like maybe smellivision or time travel. Things that don't even exist in an original. I hope schools bring in creativity to brighten our future and theirs.

                                                                                                                                  Thats all for now!            
                                                                                                                                      - Nandhini