Grades aren’t everything
I am not fascinated with grades per se. And no, I am not a negligent mum. I just dislike the idea of grades being all indicative of a child’s understanding and intelligence. Unconventional perhaps, but not that radical.
So far, Germaine has not had any tuition, despite her weak grades in Mathematics. She doesn’t like the idea and prefers being taught by us – conveniently ignoring the fact my blood pressure shoots up every time I have to coach her. And have you seen those Primary Maths questions lately? Still, they are trying to ‘boost primary education‘. Enough already! If this trend continues, all the monetary incentives they throw up cannot convince me to have a third child.
Anyway, my refusal to let grades define my child’s intelligence does not mean that I do not praise her when she does well.
Similarly, when she scores reasonably good marks, I don’t let up on her if I know that she can score better and has started being complacent.
My point is, grades are not a complete indicator of a child’s education. In some cases, some children cannot handle the stress and their nervousness during examinations and end up not doing as well as they could in normal circumstances.
Another reason why I feel that grades should not be all indicative of a child’s intelligence and abilities is also because some children might be late bloomers. If your child could not speak well even to the age of nine, did poorly in school and had a teacher who told you that he ‘could not amount to anything’, would you feel that he is a ‘gone case’?
Well, I would hardly label Albert Einstein as a ‘gone case’.
Not every one of our children may be gifted academically but I believe that every child has his or her own talent. I have known children who have flunked their academic subjects but who are good in the kitchen, sports or arts. And who is to say that these children are failures?
It is our society and our culture that determines academia to be the ultimate success. Don’t be deceived or trapped by the herd mentality. It is people like Bill Gates and Sim Wong Hoo who are laughing their way to the bank.
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I have a story that I would like to share with my readers.
There was once a boy whose nickname is “Dummy”. He was in 5th grade and thought that he was stupid. Although he grew up in a very poor neighborhood in Detroit his mother, who worked as a domestic, believed that he and his older brother could only succeed through education. She worked 2, sometimes 3 menial jobs to take care of them.
His mother restricted TV watching and required that her sons attend the library regularly. She required that they provide her 2 book reports each week. She would return the book reports with a check mark on them as a satisfactory grade. He would not learn until much later that his mother could not read.
Today, he is the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. His name is Dr Benjamin Carson. Read his story here.
That is a mother who is lowly educated but raised a child who became more than a graduate. So much for eugenics, MM Lee.
And that is a mother who believed in her child, despite him believing that he was a “Dummy”. Do we believe in our children in the same way?
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Next up: Point #2 on education – stop the mollycoddling and babysitting.
