Exams can never rank you, You are more than just Marks!

Often times, us human beings, look at things that are quantifiable. But, the reality of things is that creativity and the uniqueness of human mind are neither quantifiable or for that matter predictable. Marks are one more way in which quantity overpowers quality. How many formulas did we actually use that we studied so hard to attend that 3 hour exam? Do they ever ask about our school grades, in any job interview

(I recommend that you watch this video-Click here to watch)

Are we asking the right questions? Do we hate education? Or do we just hate going to school? There is always something that we love learning and thus we don’t necessarily hate educating ourselves but we hate the baggage that comes with it. I fear at the state of the education system, where the focus is more on the marks and grades that a student gets over the understanding that needs to percolate into our brain.

We judge the capacity or the ability of a student based on the marks they get but in fact the reality is that it only tests the ability of the student to remember and reproduce. As Josef Albers said,” Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.”

Am I giving enough importance to learning? Am I letting marks overshadow my learning process? What is imperative is that we understand is that marks DON’T measure intelligence. Once the parents and the teachers understand and I mean consciously accept this then it becomes easier for the children.

Students who get lesser marks are thought to be dumb. But what we need to perceive is that no one is dumb, each one has their own domain where they shine. And that domain can be theoretical physics, coding, football, illustrating or any other random thing we can think of. Very often we ask the question, why are we learning about a technology that was 10 or 20 years? Why aren’t we learning the new concepts and new technologies? It’s high time that these questions are answered.

Do I have to constantly compete? Do I need to be a part of the endless rat race? There is a book called catcher in the rye written by the ingenious J.D. Salinger in which the story revolves around a boy and his journey all through his teenage years. The story suggests that its perfectly okay for us not to do anything in life and that’s the way some people decide to live and we need to give the child the liberty to decide what we wants to do or more importantly what he doesn’t want to do irrespective of the marks he gets.

Most of us invariably get sucked into the web of false potentials that marks convey. We need to be able to know ourselves not in our capability to secure marks but in knowing our strengths and weaknesses. Often times the amount of marks we secure are an indication of us being good in that subject. But I cannot emphasize enough on how wrong an assumption this is. Students shouldn’t be limited by the 2 or 3 digit numbers on their marks card. It’s high time we realize just how much importance needs to be given to marks. As the Bournvita ads say “Aisi koi bhi report card aaj tak bani nahi jo bacche ki kabiliyat bata sake.” The world is much bigger than what we are taught at school and much beyond the marks we get !!

Click here to go through it.