Our Failing Education: The Bullying of the Grading System.

Schools have been letting down generation after generation; you may be asking yourself why that is. Well, it is not a straight forward answer—in fact it is probably not one particular thing at all, but a bunch of little things. I will be writing several blog posts on what I think those things are.

My first opinion for why the educational system is failing is because of the bullying nature of the grading system. It seems to me that a child's interest in becoming educated can be greatly diminished by the grading system.

How often do kids which once shinned in school, find themselves to be in the D and C range later down the road? There may be many causes to this, one being the bullying done by the jealous students which do not have the motivation or intelligence to get those high grades. Students that are unable to perform will be labeled as "stupid", and the ones that do well as "smart". This creates jealousy among the majority of students against the 'intellectual elites'—jealousy oftentimes leads to bullying, ultimately leading to the condemnation of doing well by the kids who are unable or unwilling. This is all caused directly by the grading system, and the intelligence hierarchy it creates (similar to how the Third Estate rose up against the nobility during the French Revolution). But not only that, but what about those kids which are not as intelligent as the majority of their peers (when it comes to intelligence, people obviously have great variation)? Those kids will be brainwashed into believing that they are lazy and/or stupid for their entire childhood just because they were born a certain way (subject for what should be done instead is another subject altogether). A person who is born without great intellectual ability should not be attacked psychologically for their entire childhood just because of the way they were born—there is little difference between this and the bullying nature of racism. Most of us know first hand that some kids can breeze right through school with good grades and little effort, and some other kids can put in great effort and barley pass.

We also have those kids that get stuck in the 'barley passing' mode. These kids can be as bright as any, but become unmotivated by the stinging nature of getting a bad grade. People do not like to do things that they are bad at; if you are bad at a certain subject, and you get that fact rubbed in your face, you will be that much more unmotivated. Virtually everyone does bad on a test at some point, and this is where the bullying of the grading system is perhaps the most destructive. When a child receives a bad grade, this is giving them the message that they are either lazy or stupid. Regardless of how a child processes it, this will lead to zero motivation beyond doing what is required to pass. A single bad grade is an insult to a child, they are being called "lazy" and "stupid" by their teachers use of red ink—this is believed to be best way to motivate a child, how ironic. Handing out bad grades is an intentional effort to bully students into performing. Ever hear of the expression "you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar"? Well, that is absolutely true in this case; the grading system seeks to "catch flies with vinegar", which causes harm to the confidence of majority, and at the same time causes the 'intellectual elite' to be the target of bullying by the jealous majority.

The grading system has resulted in the creation of terms like "nerd" which virtually all students dread to be labeled as (nerds are viewed as social outcasts, unpopular, wimpy etc.). Being an intellectual should not come with negative stereotypes, yet the grading system is the main reason for why it does. 

I believe I have laid out why using a grading system is itself bullying, and also causes bullying; in-case you are not convinced let me further explain it. Many people believe that bullies do their bullying because of personal insecurities—they vent frustration at those perceived as an easy targets (which may be the case in some instances of the use of grading). But I do not believe this is telling the whole story for why bullies bully. I believe bullies, rather than picking on easy targets just because they are easy, are instead looking for those that do not conform to the ideal that they hold themselves to be. Bullies pick on kids that stand out from the pack, and this is done to deter what is perceived as an undesirable deviation from the pack. This applies to grading in that it aims to attack a child's confidence in hopes of making those children conform to the desirable (grades of A's and B's).

Grading, like all types of bullying rarely have a possitive effect—all grades do is create anxiety which may lead to psychological problems down the road (1 in 4 adults have some sort of mental disorder). Not to get too hung up on this, but anxiety caused by grades can cause great harm for the learning process. You may get some old-fashioned dinosaurs that think it is needed, obviously I disagree. I believe that those early years should be as enjoyable as possible, and at the core of that enjoyment should be learning about the world around them—it should not be a period of anxiety to perform and conform to a grading system would uses bullying tactics in order to get results.

The system which should, in my opinion, be put in the old's place is the subject for another day, so I'll leave it at that.