The Art of Learning
In highschool, it always seemed to be about the grades. Actually, ever since I can remember it always seemed to be about the grades. From the time I was little and in kindergarten, I was taught that an "A" meant Awesome and an "F" meant you were a failure. And as the years went on, it just keep getting more and more intense. If you were an "A" student, you recieved special awards, you got your name announced, and you even got to be in the special "Honors" classes. But if you got an "F," you were shunned. You were put in the stupid classes and no one really cared about announcing your name.
I was always preached to in highschool saying, "You're grades are some of the most important things that will get you into a good college." So it's no wonder that students are so pressured to get that A. It's how we were brought up. If it wasn't an A, or sometimes a B, it just wasn't good enough.
Which brings me to my next point. How do you get those grades? Well, mostly through tests and homework and projects. By reading endless amounts of passages from a lot of books that you just don't care about and taking copious notes and then studying those notes to put back onto a sheet of paper for a test. But then the interesting this is, most people just forget what they studied right after they turn in the test. I sure know I did. I didn't really care about the year that the Indians were moved onto reservations or what the name was of the third president of Ireland. But, I had to get the garde, so I had to study.
I pretty much had that attitude of "nothing else matters except the grade" until the second semester of my senior year. I took a class called contemporary issues and I thought it should be relatively "Easy A". On the first day of class, my teacher asked us how much we remembered from all previous classes we had taken. I thought about it and said about 5%. And that's when he explained to me that this class wouldn't be about grades, tests, homework. It would be about learning. And learning something useful. I was shocked. Never had I taken a class like that before. But it really taught me a lot. My teacher taught me to open my eyes to everything I hadn't paid attention to. I learned about life and I learned so much about myself. But most importantly, it taught me that school isn't just about making the grade. On the last day of class, my teacher asked us how much information we remembered from the semester.
I smiled and said 99%.
I realized that when I wasn't so focused upon the grade, and just focused upon learning something new just for the sake of learning, it could be a lot more beneficial in the end.
I was always preached to in highschool saying, "You're grades are some of the most important things that will get you into a good college." So it's no wonder that students are so pressured to get that A. It's how we were brought up. If it wasn't an A, or sometimes a B, it just wasn't good enough.
Which brings me to my next point. How do you get those grades? Well, mostly through tests and homework and projects. By reading endless amounts of passages from a lot of books that you just don't care about and taking copious notes and then studying those notes to put back onto a sheet of paper for a test. But then the interesting this is, most people just forget what they studied right after they turn in the test. I sure know I did. I didn't really care about the year that the Indians were moved onto reservations or what the name was of the third president of Ireland. But, I had to get the garde, so I had to study.
I pretty much had that attitude of "nothing else matters except the grade" until the second semester of my senior year. I took a class called contemporary issues and I thought it should be relatively "Easy A". On the first day of class, my teacher asked us how much we remembered from all previous classes we had taken. I thought about it and said about 5%. And that's when he explained to me that this class wouldn't be about grades, tests, homework. It would be about learning. And learning something useful. I was shocked. Never had I taken a class like that before. But it really taught me a lot. My teacher taught me to open my eyes to everything I hadn't paid attention to. I learned about life and I learned so much about myself. But most importantly, it taught me that school isn't just about making the grade. On the last day of class, my teacher asked us how much information we remembered from the semester.
I smiled and said 99%.
I realized that when I wasn't so focused upon the grade, and just focused upon learning something new just for the sake of learning, it could be a lot more beneficial in the end.
posted by wisco88 at
8:25 PM
5 Comments:
This is a good topic for dialogue. It reminds me of the words of Mark Twain: "Never let your schooling get in the way of your education." So did this teacher not give grades at all? I wonder how that would work. But we could think more about why schools put so much emphasis on grades. Thinking about something Schumaker says on page 138 made me see the role of grading in a new light. Schumaker says, "Cultures are living organisms that fight to stay alive, just like any other form of life. Norms are the building blocks of culture. For a culture to survive, these norms must be followed" (138). The school culture depends on teachers asserting authority and imposing their knowledge on the students. the students might question this arrangement, but grades are the means of keeping challenges and questions to a minimum. Thus, the culture of school survives. I think Schumaker is not the greatest writer, but some of his ideas, such as about conformity to norms, are interesting to think about and yield some insights.
February 3, 2008 at 11:10 AM
So far your past two posts have appied to me so well! I love wearing crocs and here at SMU, I feel as though they are banned. Its amusing to see how much people can hate them. This post is powerful to me because I am the defenition of learning material for a test, not for learning. In high school there was so much pressure to do well and get the A that learning was forgotten, and it was a game of memory. Until my physics class junior and physics 2 senior year. There was a new teacher, and he was 100% dedicated to the class and to the students. He made us learn and because of him I remember physics! Who would have thought? I think good grades come hand in hand with learning what you are taught.
February 3, 2008 at 12:42 PM
You bring up a very good point. I have never understood why everyone places so much emphasis on getting a good grade in a class and almost no emphasis on actually learning the material. This fact was especially hard to face in my Microeconomics class last semester. I had never taken an Economics course before, except for an overview class in Middle School, so I really didn't know what to expect. Also, it was my first big college lecture class which made it a tough transition. I attended every class, did the homework, and studied for hours upon end for each test. I understood the concepts and actually did learn the material, but my grades never reflected that effort. The way my teacher presented the material and tested us on it, I could not understand. My highest test grade was a 68. Compared to my grades in High School and in other classes at SMU, this was a real shock as well as very frustrating to me. How could I be receiving these horrible grades when I actually knew the material? What made it worse is that some people taking the same course as me skipped every class, cheated on the homework, and aced the tests. Baffling.
What I learned from this is that your grades do not reflect how much you learn nor how much effort you put into a class, but how you test. This is frustrating for a person who works very hard in a class only to make a C. Why are grades and G.P.A.’s so important in today’s society? I know plenty of kids that are book-smart, but have no sense of reality or the social skills to get them through life. More importantly, I think that if you have a good head on your shoulders, a fairly decent amount of knowledge, and people skills this is far more significant than a 4.0.
February 4, 2008 at 9:38 AM
How can we learn anything if we are only concerned with the grade attached? I'm definitely guilty of being obsessed with every grade I receive and my gpa each semester. But can you blame me? Our gpa seems to be the only thing that matters, especially when we have to have a certain gpa to get into our respective schools within the university, including Cox School of Business. Wisco88 makes the point that learning something for the sake of learning could be more beneficial. However, it's my gpa that's going to get me into Cox.
I think what was also important in high school was our test-taking abilities. In response to ahd's comment, tests usually test our testing ability and our retention of the material, not how well we learned the material. But what about the SAT? That whole test is about the student's test-taking abilities. You can't study for the SAT. So what about those students, like ahd, who can do homework and learn the material but aren't the best test-takers? We all had to take the SAT for our college applications. But are these standardized tests a true measure of a student's ability to learn? Wouldn't colleges want a student who wants to learn rather than the student who's just a good test-taker? Is it fair? Honestly, I'm an excellent test-taker when I can study the material and show off my memorization skills. But when it comes to standardized tests, I'm no good. To ahd, do you think the slacker students in your economics class who made good grades were just good test-takers? Is that really all our grades are based on?
February 24, 2008 at 10:10 PM
I liked jat's contribution to this thread because I agree about the SAT tests not really being about anything but how well you can take the test. That's why people can raise their test scores by paying for private tutorials in how to prep for the tests--putting rich kids at an advantage over poor ones. (Another example of the myth of equal opportunity in USA.) It's just amazing that colleges allow these companies to influence the whole admissions process. The College Board and other companies profit by making the tests, getting kids to pay to take the tests multiple times, and all the other commercial enterprises surrounding this farce.
March 16, 2008 at 12:46 PM
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