Surprised? I suppose you could use some story time (kind of a long one)!

In some quiz, in some course I was enrolled in last semester, I scored a 0. I didn’t prepare as much, but I had some knowledge of the subject beforehand, and I decided to go along with it. Needless to say, that didn’t turn out so well. I suppose some preparation could’ve helped me, but I must admit, I didn’t attempt it smartly enough. I second guessed myself and wasted time. But here’s the thing - I was okay with it as soon as I turned in my quiz. Well, there was nothing to turn in really, because it was empty. However, many of my classmates were miserable even though they weren’t getting a 0. They didn’t want to accept their reality, even though they did better than me on the quiz, not just relatively, but absolutely.

I need to step back a little and give you some background info. Ever since school, there was a lot of emphasis on our grades. A full score, an A+, a 100% was all we chased. You’re celebrated if you had excellent scores. ‘Mistakes’ on the other hand, were stigmatized - and I don’t just mean the ones we did. It may not be as bad as I’m making it sound, but people around me did grow up to care about marks.

Now, coming back to my story. I skipped the next class when the teacher distributed the quiz sheets. At this point, it’s essential you know that I didn’t skip it because I was afraid of seeing my professor’s face - I was probably sleeping in my room or something. But I like the professor (to the extent that I interact a lot with him, in class and outside of it), and I decided to meet him in his office the next day after I’d wake up - I ended up missing the first two classes of that day (no regrets). The first thing I did was ask him if he cared about it because I had already told him my situation, but only because I wasn’t sure about what he thought about it. Many other teachers and professors I’ve come across would’ve made it a point to give me a separate lecture about how bad of a student I was because of one quiz. But this man didn’t. We sat for the next 20 minutes having a great conversation. For the first 5, he helped me get rid of some doubts and solidify my knowledge base. The best part was what happened afterward.

He took out a book, which is unrelated to the subject of my quiz, or even this blog post. The book was “Communicating Sequential Processes by C. A. R. Hoare” (the author is a Turing Award winner; massive respect), but he has highlighted a line on its preface (again, unrelated to the subject of the book) - “…to see both current and future problems in a fresh light, in which they can be more efficiently and more reliably solved; and even better, they can sometimes be avoided.” - and as I read the bold part, I smiled.

Okay, you need some more context - this professor takes excellent classes, and provides brilliant quizzes. You really must know the basics and build upon it to come to something. Guessing or rote learning wouldn’t help much here, he’s bothered with how you apply your knowledge. He’s also very particular on this - either you write the complete answer and get its marks, or get none of it at all. In school, it was different, where students would generally have an attempt at every question and even go to the extent of writing bullshit (yes, you know who you are) in hopes that the teacher would grant them partial marks (out of pity sometimes). But this professor wouldn’t stand that nonsense.

And that’s a good thing because he genuinely cares about the way we learn. He’s unambiguous on problem-solving - stay back till you know ‘precisely’ (italicized for an inside joke - the ones who know the professor will get it) what to do, otherwise, don’t bother at all. One of the questions on the quiz was basically a bluff question - it talked about a ‘concept’ that “wasn’t possible” (for the lack of better words), and that’s all you had to write if you could figure that out, in a space that could accommodate maybe 30 more words with average handwriting. Many students were caught off-guard with the number of points/marks that question was for and the space provided, which led them to assume that a ‘long answer’ was expected. To their dismay, they couldn’t figure out what to do, possibly because of the way they learned, and they wrote bullshit in fear of getting a less score in total. And that’s what I smiled about, and the professor was amused as well.

Story time over. But a little about me now. I was an excellent student in school. I was an A+ student. I topped the school. It might surprise you that I did this with the least amount of effort. I hardly studied at home. I can’t sit for more than 2 hours. School was just easy. But I never cared about my marks. You might think I can say this because I did well anyway, but I wouldn’t even if I didn’t. Heck, I study for the same amount of time in college, and the “A+ student at school” has now scored a 0 in some quiz in college and has once gotten an E grade too. As I said, I never cared much about my marks; I cared about my learning and was satisfied with gaining knowledge. I know I have way more value than my quiz scores or my GPA, and you can’t put a number to that. My professor was cool with the 0 because I know that doesn’t represent me. I listen in class, interact with my professor, and won’t settle till I clear my basics. I like challenges in my quizzes and my exams, and for me, my end goal is to figure out all the correct answers, even though it may be after handing over my answers. It always was, and it will still be. Also, that quiz wasn’t that much of a big deal, I made up for it afterwards (did I get you there?).

However, if the 0 surprised you initially, then it’s because you know me from school. If it’s the latter part of the title, then I suppose we can agree on having more teachers like them. We’ve been taught to bother about our test scores/marks so much, that it carries on even after school to college, and maybe even to your workplace where the numbers are now some performance metrics. Remember when I said mistakes are stigmatized? Even mine were. For instance, I usually used to get at least around 95% or more of questions in my math test right (I love math). But if it fell even by a little, I was questioned for having made “silly mistakes”. Once I scored a 41/50, and teachers were worried I was ‘distracted’. Rumors spread about me having lost my mind over a girl. I could only imagine how much stick the low scorers would get.

In the long run, all of this can make people scared of failure. They’re scared to do something wrong that they won’t come up with something original. Creativity is killed for perfection. Questions may be discouraged because “that’s not the way you’re supposed to think to get to the answer” because mistakes are stigmatized right from school. One time in college I got a 3/10 on my assignment (I didn’t like the subject enough but passed), but what’s more amusing is that one of my classmates was worried even after getting a 9.5/10 because she couldn’t point out where her 0.5 got lost. They’re ashamed of low scores.

I know much of this is scrambled here and there, and it’s all arguable. But it’s possible this is rooted in the faults of our education system. We’re not getting marks for our holistic growth. On an unrelated but related note, why does Delhi University cutoff students at a ridiculously high number? 99% or nothing? What’s the fault in the 98% kid? If we’re made to worry about things like these from school itself, then how are people going to focus on actual learning instead of (say) the 0.5 point my classmate was running after?

Some of my classmates are still worried about their marks like they were in school. I too am, but just a tad bit. Again, the situation is not as extreme as I’m making it sound like, because you can’t ditch this saying there’s no learning at all. This also doesn’t justify me not doing better, because I know I can. I am writing this hoping it makes you think a little. It’s all scrambled for a reason. I’m not here to sit and analyze everything. I could only hope things get better with the system, and people start thinking about the real reason why they should be in a school or college. It’s not all for just getting a job, is it?

That’s one way of looking at things. Here’s another one, inspired by my conversation with a friend a long time ago, and I think it’s important I say this too if I’ve said all that I did above.

Your grade is a reflection of two things. One is your understanding of concepts. You will indeed score more only if you understand it in the first place. As far as college goes, getting a GPA of 7 or 8 (our GPAs are out of 10) with a mere understanding of concepts is easy. After that, it’s just sheer hard work. And to this, I’ll say that I am a 7 pointer, and I do bother learning my concepts (even if it is after the exam) only because I care about my learning and somewhere I do hope to do better, because I know I can.

You can say that I’m still in a good position even with a 7, which is why I don’t worry about my GPA even though I claim to not worry about my GPA at all. So much for my rant above, huh? What’s this new side of things, you might ask? Wait for it. The second factor to your grade is that it’s a reflection of your belief in the system. If you believe in the system, it’ll naturally show in the GPA (and maybe that could mean I don’t so much?).

It’s not that the system is perfect. But it’s essential you read this part too if you’ve read everything above this. There are several imperfections, but then again, what’s perfect? I don’t want to accept the system blindly. I hope for some change. Maybe I can inspire some change myself. But there’s only one way to change the system, and that is to be in it. Like it or not, as of today, we’re still judged to some extent on our grades. It’s essential to work hard, but that doesn’t mean my rant on the emphasis of marks is entirely meaningless. Maybe it was important that I had done well from school, perhaps that gives credibility to the things I’ve said about this topic here.

The bottom line is - learning matters. Now, whether that’s shown with your grades or not, if you give importance to learning, it is only going to help. As for the emphasis on grades go, I’ve given you different perspectives on it. I hope some of it makes sense.

I’ll abruptly end it here, hoping that this sparks a conversation, even if that is with yourself and not below in the comments section. Ciao.