As I’m a current high school junior, I only have one more full year of school until I graduate high school. Recently, I’ve stopped to reflect on my educational journey; I’ve been in the same public school district since kindergarten, and a lot has definitely changed! However, what changed the most for me is the overall nature of learning. 

As soon as I walk into school each morning, the countdown starts until the end of the day. Alright, this is an over dramatic interpretation; yes, there are particular moments in school where I wish time would stop so I could live in the moment for longer. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the primary force governing my school day is stress. Maybe it’s stress directed toward a chemistry lab I submitted the night before, or toward an upcoming test. 

So the next logical question would be: why do I stress about these assignments? Because, even in elementary school there were always tests and exams, ranging from math chapter tests to language arts projects; and, for whatever I submitted, I received a score in return, whether that was an ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘C’ staring back at me in red ink. Yet, I never stressed about these grades; even if I earned a bad score, it was an opportunity to learn and improve. When I was younger, school genuinely excited me; I looked forward to leaving my colorful, aesthetically decorated second-grade classroom with more knowledge than when I walked in. 

The “grade stress” must have begun in middle school. All of a sudden, grades began to matter… more. Yes, they determined placement into the successive course, but they seemed to carry more weight. As a result, the previous spark for learning something was replaced with fear, since grades became a validation of my hard work. If I received an unexceptional grade on a math test, did that mean that I did not work hard enough? Did it mean that I wasn’t learning, and that I was… unintelligent? Thinking rationally, the answer to these questions is a resounding “no.” However, in the heat of the moment, ration is usually thrown out the window. It turns out that research from Stanford University’s Challenge Success Program corroborates this cascade of unwanted feelings, as 75% of students admit to feeling stressed by their schoolwork, while 72% of students often worry about taking assessments. 

Grades are not a validation of anything; instead, they have taken the joy out of learning. A bad test grade is an opportunity to learn, to do better; yet, like a dark stain on a carpet, it plagues our marking period averages and later, our transcript. I wish that it were possible to learn without constantly being measured. After all, research has shown that grades don’t motivate students. Rather, grades are responsible for creating a monotonous routine in school – where everything is done to prepare for a test – have taken away from that intrinsic desire to learn, the same desire that we had as children. 

The Pandemic 

Education during the pandemic is a key example of what happens when there is no intrinsic desire to learn. Remote learning took the monotony of school and multiplied it by a thousand; what was the point in learning about molecular bonding angles? During in-person learning, the motivation was simple: grades. If I didn’t understand how covalent bonding occurred, I would be doomed for the next chemistry test; that was the last thing I wanted, especially since grades already carried so much weight. On the contrary, let’s just say that online test taking was quite… interesting. By interesting, I mean that grades no longer provided an accurate reflection of our learning (in fact, they never did). It became extraordinarily easy to search up answers during an online exam; I’ll stop there. 

Yet, the main factor that carried me through remote learning was that genuine excitement and desire to learn. I enjoyed biology class since I hope to enter a career in the medical field, and as I’m passionate about writing and storytelling, I view English class as a way to better my skills. As for my other subjects, the format of remote learning made finding that passion incredibly difficult. 

Hence, the pandemic helped me realize what the detrimental issue with school is: because it sucks us into the illusion that grades paint a picture of our learning and growth, we’ve never paused to discover what we’re truly passionate about – and how school could help develop those passions – setting us up for long-term failure, unable to sustain our educations during disastrous events like pandemics. 

Reviving the Joy for Learning 

I’m not arguing that grades shouldn’t exist at all; there should be a way to measure students’ growth and hold students accountable. However, the current system is outdated. Instead of measuring performance on a test – a singular, instantaneous snapshot of a student’s knowledge on a certain subject – maybe measuring students’ ability on applying their classroom knowledge would rekindle that joy for learning we once had. 

Of course, I’m not a teacher, and am poorly versed in teaching styles and methods. I can provide an anecdote, though: 

First, my AP Language & Composition Class. For those who may not be familiar with AP classes, there’s an organization called the College Board that, among a ton of other things, created college-level classes in different subjects known as AP classes; students take an AP course throughout the year, followed by an exam that assesses their understanding of the content and skills taught throughout the course. Depending on how well they performed on the exam, students have the opportunity to earn college credit. 

So, AP Language & Composition (otherwise known as AP Lang) is at the level of a first-year English course at college. I’m taking the class this year, and it’s probably one of my favorite classes; not only because I enjoy the writing aspect, but because I can see an application for what I’m learning. We did a unit on college-level writing earlier this year; we were given a series of texts and tasked with writing a synthesis essay. This assignment was definitely challenging, but it was interesting since I had to develop original ideas centered around a complex topic. Even though I was writing an essay for a course (and for a grade), I was able to think critically and learn something valuable in the process. I felt passionate about what I was doing, and this  is the type of experience that I want to get from school as a whole. 

As for my other AP classes, I don’t always get that same experience (if I go into this now, this post would completely deviate from its original topic… I think it’s best if I dedicate a separate blog post to AP classes). 

Nonetheless, I think the lesson is clear: school should be about developing a student’s interests, not solely preparing for tests. This approach could potentially reduce the amount of stress students experience, and also prepare them for experiences beyond the classroom. Maybe this could be done through creative projects, research, and other opportunities (besides formal assessments) for students to demonstrate their understanding. The purpose of school is to develop the thinkers, innovators and creators of the next generation. 

Instead of preparing to succeed on a test, shouldn’t we be preparing to blossom into passionate leaders, ready to make a difference in the fields we care about? 

Maybe, if our approach shifts to this, we can fix school.