G for Grades

With age and maturity, there comes a time in your life when you really understand something! Grades isn't everything. Getting good marks may get you into better school, may help you getting into the job market with an edge, but does it matter so much in life? Marks may give us a jump start, but I find attitude towards others and self confidence makes us the person who we really are!

Happy with that notion, both my kids went to The Valley School when we were in Bangalore. That school promises holistic education to the children (and their parents) and showed me a more interesting tendencies of my child . There was no marks in my kids report card. Instead, there were pages and pages of information about how my child faces each subject, what subject is he curious about, does he try hard to understand the problem and does he strive to achieve the solution by himself and much much more. There is no marks, ranking, comparison and peer pressure. All were fee and equal. All kids had fun at school. 

Moving to Seoul, it was a bit hard to get accustomed to the International school here. Driven purely by grades and points, this system was very hard for us to accept and adjust to. Though the grades of the kids are not known to the each other, it is enormously stressful to the kids and more importantly, makes the parents competitive :( There are just letters marking the grades my son has got and the corresponding marks associated in the report card now.

But having successfully stumbled through this system for three years now, I was pleasantly surprised to see words written by the teacher, commenting on his efforts for his Science project! It made my son and me so happy than the grade he achieved for the project. Made him like the teacher a little bit more. Made my day :)

G for Grades for ABC Wednesday