I Used to Hate School Because the System Placed More Importance on Grades Over Learning
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| Faculty of Medicine |
Why the statement "A good grade is a sign of good character." may often be misunderstood
Well mannered > Well educated is FALSE DICHOTOMY.Do not demonize intellectualization. And do not dismiss character.There will be chaos without character. There will be no progress without education.
What Gochuico was talking about was not to romanticize. To romanticize means to "deal with or describe in an idealized or unrealistic fashion; make (something) seem better or more appealing than it really is." In short, to romanticize low grades and mistakes is to make them more appealing than they really are. It's not that Gochuico dismisses learning from mistakes or makes grades the only basis. What he's actually telling is to learn from mistakes and do what's right. Any student who studies smart and learns something deserves a good grade. People should at least try to strive higher than 60%. In college, I developed a habit of making sure my scores weren't below 70% and tried to reach 80% as much as possible.
In short, we're not to romanticize our mistakes saying we learn from them. Some mistakes can't be corrected like a permanent physical injury. We definitely want to reduce our mistakes, not to keep making mistakes. Mistakes are made and they do happen. However, learning from them is key to preventing bigger mistakes. Mistakes may not be always something to frown upon but romanticizing them is just as misguided.
The issue I had with school and my bad grades back then
It's always a common thing among people of Chinese ethnicity to compete on whose children is better. The writer Amy Tan, known for the Joy Luck Club did put that in her novel and in the movie of the same name. The movie had the mothers bragging about their daughters. Having grown up in a Chinese Filipino household--such competition was inevitable. It becomes common to ask, "Is your child in the honor rank?" Sure, it can be said that the person is simply giving regards. Yet, it can also be a way to put down other people's children based on petty rivalries. Did these petty rivalries go back to high school or even elementary? I even experienced having petty rivalries with people, which made me dislike so-and-so, even if said person reminded me of where I was better. I was frequently angry with so-and-so because they were better at mathematics than me. I only had 79 in my final high school math and couldn't get my dream course. It turns out my dream course had a very high extinction rate.
A Chinese language teacher (and I found those classes pointless due to too much memorization and a one-size-fits-all approach) of mine talked about the Chinese scholar, Mencius or Meng Zi. The story went with how a brilliant scholar, was once a wayward child. Mencius was cutting classes and his mother was disappointed. Mencius' mother got a pair of scissors, cut the cloth, and told him that quitting halfway because you're bored, never works. The same Chinese language teacher (whom many called Teacher Turtle because she had a humped back) said, "Okay, think, what would your mother say if you want to quit school now?" She asked it in Hokkien. I soon replied in Hokkien, "My mother got angry when I told her about it." She said, "Well, you learned your lesson. Good. Now learn." I did work hard to get better grades but found myself learning nothing.
It was followed by another Chinese language teacher who was nicknamed Teacher Minus. It was because she would threaten with deductions every time a student misbehaves. She talked about the Chinese scholar Li Bai and met the woman with the iron bar. I remember how we talked when I was in college. When I graduated, she and another Chinese language teacher often asked, "Is it true we were strict?" I frankly replied, "Yes teacher. But I did learn something." I said that after I showed my grade for the practicum project.
However, just because I learned something, doesn't mean that I shouldn't try and talk about the education system's flaws. What was wrong was that, no matter how teachers tried to talk about the value of learning over grades, they would lapse into the lousy system. I had a teacher who was pretty much like the late Miriam Defensor Santiago, one of the many people I admire. People may say she's a mean bully but she did help me when I flunked in the first grade. She said, "I'm sorry but you have to study. You can do it. Just study." No matter how fierce she was--she still helped me out when I flunked. I didn't do well in her class but in the end, I did learn something.
What goes wrong is how grades over learning have become the norm. Some students care more about their children being honor students than learning something. The rationale is, "If I'm an honor student then my children should be honor students." That's a very bad rationale since textbooks decades ago are easier than textbooks today. Lessons will get harder and there's a good reason for that--we need to focus on learning over just a grade alone. Unfortunately, some parents who care about their reputation as honor students (from more than 10 years ago) want their children to be honor students like them. Just because daddy or mommy was a valedictorian, doesn't mean the child should be one. Toxic standards like those may have been the reason why the education system focuses so much on grades, instead of grading based on learning. This can cause too much trouble for the children since the lessons from their parents' time are already outdated. Children will be learning new information and it will get more difficult. Lessons are getting more difficult, which means learning is more important than just getting high grades and becoming honor students. These parents may pull their children out of the good schools in exchange for schools with poor honesty records. They'll start buying grades instead, which is why focusing on grades alone makes no sense!
Another extreme is the problem of focusing on getting a grade good, never mind learning. That's why I feel like the education system has failed. For example, in a Chinese Filipino school, I really must criticize the way Chinese was taught. People move on to the next level but the question is if such people can speak Mandarin or not. Speaking of which, I wrote an article about why the old Chinese language education can't pass the HSK standard. Memorizing without understanding is just plain pointless. The same goes for any subject. What's the use of impressively memorizing complicated formulas and one never knows how mathematics or science works? Mathematics and science are supposedly interesting subjects. However, teachers are forced to stick with that they're made to work with. As said, a bad system will eventually defeat a good teacher, sooner or later.
Learning would mean not just memorizing and getting a good grade. Instead, it's all about getting a good grade because you learned something. I'd like to raise how much I hated trigonometry back in high school, no matter how reasonable the teacher was. I remember a statement when I was told I should apologize to the mathematics teacher for my tantrums. I said, "I hate math!" My classmate only replied, "She's just doing her job." The statement "She's just doing his/her job." would prove the system is the problem. Watching DNews, there were two videos about mathematics. One video said that there's no such thing as being bad at math. Another video stated that the problem with how we teach mathematics is purely based on plug and chug. That is, we're just taught how to do math but not how to understand it (read here). The moment I looked at trigonometry sample problems on YouTube, I felt that I regretted hating mathematics. However, mathematics becomes a frequent cause of frustration especially when grades are the focus, not learning. We're often told to never explore beyond the book or just listen. Listening is important but again, so is creativity and initiative.
It's something that parents complain their children lack initiative, or the ability to do things on their own. I want to contest the idea that initiative can't be taught and self-learned. No, initiative needs to be taught before it can be fostered within. With a faulty grading system, I think the education system is guilty of turning students into robots. I found a blog that discusses the problem of schools. Pritika Nair, a stay-at-home mom, writes this one which I believe might further explain why I hated school back when I was in late elementary to high school:
1. Children are treated like robots or machines
The amount of homework, notes to be copied, coupled with home assignments and related activities can get overwhelming for both children and parents. And this trend starts as early as Grade 1! When children would go to school, the only exception (and relief) was that notes were made to be completed inside the classroom. Now with online schooling, this load has also been thrust on their backs (more on the parents’ shoulders though).
I don’t say that any of the above is unimportant or unnecessary for the child. I and other parents like me aren’t able to comprehend why children as small as First Graders are subjected to “undue pressure” from the schools in terms of homework and notes completion? Do the schools perceive kids to be robot-like machines that can keep performing tasks one after the other and finish them in a jiffy?
You ask the school and they say: These notes can be completed by the child in their own time. But where do they give the time? Every day, there’s a new subject to study as per the time table, not to forget the homework and notes to be completed for the same too. This would inevitably pile up the previous day’s load on the child.
2. Children are encouraged to parrot what they learn
Mugging up concepts without really understanding their core meaning is an issue that’s existed in schools since forever. Most of us would agree and reminisce having experienced the same at some point of time in their respective schooling life. The same is being continued even today.
And now that we are parents, we hate our kids being turned into parrots too. They’re expected to score high (both from schools and parents) in the course of which, they will eventually learn well and parrot or write the same to score good marks but they would never be clear on what those concepts mean or be able to explain the same to their children in future.
3. Children feel bogged down and become disinterested
This is the most important and if not addressed promptly, may become unfavorable to all parties involved in this. Children, when laden with study pressure, may soon start losing interest in the very concept of learning - the ultimate aim for why we send kids to school in the first place. If that aim gets lost in the mind of the child, it’s the end of the story for both them and their parents - children might still study under pressure but we aren’t turning them into bright young minds for the future.
With the notes I've just given, I could think why Chinese language classes even have people who finished fourth year but can't speak Mandarin. I even found some stupid comments on people on the Bahay Tsinoy Museum Facebook page where people downgrade Pinyin. I ended up firing questions like if they could read Pinyin or can the City Hall read Zhuyin? I think another reason why I ended up not studying well during my first round of Grade 2 Chinese (and flunked it) was not because of the teacher. A strict teacher is good but a lousy system can turn a strict teacher, into a lousy teacher. I wanted to learn Chinese but it was just all parroting. There was no real conversation, only parroting. The same is true for every subject--parroting!
Mathematics and science are both interesting subjects when taught right. Maybe, it's the way mathematics and science are taught that makes it boring to too many people. Right now, I'm thankful and still thankful for my very strict science teacher in my high school life. She and that MDS-type teacher have migrated to America. Mathematics are science are full of exciting concepts. For example, calculating the distance between two points is needed for gathering data for the laws of motion. To get the distance needed for a basic physics problem, one may need to use a lot of trigonometry. Calculus is used to get the optimal speed. Math teachers are forced to teach mathematics with just plug and chug. Science teachers are forced to teach science with just the lecture. Science experiments and video presentations are hardly done. Even the best teachers like my mathematics teacher, science teacher, and the MDS-style teacher got compromised by a lousy system. We can talk about how mathematics and science are part of life. However, failing to really connect them to life (especially with mathematics) is really a huge problem.
Learning in school is not just about getting a good grade or "As long as you pass." Instead, it's about getting a good grade because you learned something. Now, I'd like to focus again on mathematics because I hated mathematics back in elementary to high school. Memorizing the basic arithmetic table makes no sense unless you learn it like, "If A and B have one apple each, you have two apples." I'll mention Trigonometry again since I always feared I'd never graduate because of it. Maybe, I would've liked Trigonometry better if we made problems like we talked about the cat and the ladder, not just talk about how Trigonometry is used by engineers. Not everyone will be taking engineering. Sure, it helps to learn basic Trigonometry because it's part of life. However, the way lessons are taught makes no sense, if they're not collected to real life.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my business ethics teacher. I wonder if I could say she had obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Sure, I learned a lot from her. I talked to her about how grade ranked from 1.8 to 2.1 in the business ethics course. She mentioned that my final exam wasn't as good. At the same time, she did mention that my grade was still good and I learned something. She was only starting to call students' attention if they didn't comply with what she wanted. She said, "Sure, your grade dropped a little but that's okay. At most, you learned something and you didn't get a bad grade." I felt I did deserve to go from rank 1.8 to rank 2.1 if I didn't study well for the final exam. Though, I learned a lot from that same teacher because she was very strict about giving grades. She was so focused on learning. Right now, we need an education system that will give us more teachers like her!
We need to face the fact that lessons will get harder. Information is generated daily. A Philippine history textbook is bound to get thicker because of new information. While I was in high school, the presidents I passed through were Joseph Marcelo Ejercito aka Joseph Estrada, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Now, we have the 17th president which is Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. Maria Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino and Fidel V. Ramos were still alive in high school. A classmate of mine even erroneously put "Date of Death" in her project and placed "Not yet dead" while both lived. Now, both Mrs. Aquino (who died in 2010) and Ramos (who died in 2022) are dead. The same can go for any subject. I decided to get into my newfound love for mathematics and decided to think about math classrooms. Can a calculus class still afford to teach only what Hipparchus discovered and ignore the important discoveries that Isaac Newton made for calculus? Newtonian calculus would've been a great help for engineers and the like today. Without this, I think we wouldn't have new technologies today.
I'm writing this post not because I want to get rid of school or subjects I hated back in high school. Instead, it's exploring what we can do to correct the system continuously. Some stubborn boomers keep saying, "It's not the system, it's the people that's the problem." However, the very definition of a system according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is, "an organized set of doctrines, ideas, or principles usually intended to explain the arrangement or working of a systematic whole." To say there's no such thing as a bad system, just bad people is sheer ignorance. If the system doesn't encourage good people and only depends on who's on top, how can it be better? A system defines how things are run and people are run by the system more than they run the system.
