new electives being offered I love so
many subjects so it was hard to narrow
down which ones to take but eventually
when I was finally done picking my
classes I compared to my schedule with
my friends just to see if they had any
classes with me then one of my friends
said yeah I love English but I didn’t
take English literature this year
because I suck at it and asked her well
why do you suck at English and she
replied well I only got a 70 in the
class last year and at first I thought
fair enough but then later I realized
whether you suck at a subject or not
shouldn’t the point of school be about
fostering our interest and becoming
better at something so why does getting
a bad mark limit our learning
unfortunately the reality for many
students is they don’t take certain
classes for fear it would bring down
their academic average and this is a big
deal when students compromise their own
learning just to get their numbers on
their report cards now you might be
thinking well that’s the students own
fault anyways but why do so many of them
care about grace rather than learning
could it be that school is focusing on
the wrong thing it seems like schools
sole preoccupation is to determine who
can follow the curriculum the best we as
young people are taught to memorize
information found in a textbook only to
regurgitate it on to next week’s test
paper before forgetting all about it oh
you don’t need to know that for the test
or that’s way beyond the curriculum are
usually some teachers responses to
an insightful question or an original
comment that Aston has made I feel like
school no longer inspires the minds of
the next generation instead researchers
at the College of William and Mary
showed that the creativity among
students is on the decline an increased
number of students merely learned a
minimum just to get the desired grade we
asked hey what’s on the quiz so we can
study just that and if something is not
for marks or not on a test then we’re
reluctant to do the work assigned now is
this because students are lazy why do we
seem so mark obsessed well it’s because
a number means so much to us nowadays
because we feel like those numbers
determine our futures so we value
getting a good mark as more important
than learning itself but what other
choices do we have
it’s not like we really have a say in
this we are told day after day that
education is the key to a successful
life and that we need good marks in
order to have a respectable job or good
income sure some people tell us that
marks don’t define us and that were more
than just so great but it never feels
that way many institutions and learning
programs solely look at the marks on a
transcript making students feel like
their future is determined by that
simple piece of paper so even though
some students might be passionate about
their learning or have an inventive mind
if they underperform on those exams then
these organizations will refuse to
consider them innovation will stagnate
if this current ideology of education is
followed because we kill our children’s
creativity curiosity and desire to learn
the education system makes it easy for
them to just do what they’re being told
by high school most of us students we
will stop asking questions and we will
roll our eyes
add a few hoodoo and in the midst of all
of this we have developed another
problem we somehow adopted this false
perspective that those who have good
marks must be better and smarter than
those who do not now those that have
trouble following one way of learning
have to face a stigma because in our
society students with lower grades are
considered as less intelligent and this
lowers the self-esteem but often times
it just means they might learn
differently and they are smart in their
own way or they could be going through a
personal issue that consequently affects
their marks we shouldn’t be so quick to
judge them personally I have always been
a straight-a student throughout high
school most of my marks are in the mid
to high 90s and when I tell people that
I have almost failed grade two and three
and only God sees an elementary school
no one believes me
they say oh you seem smart so how could
she have possibly struggled an
elementary school well the truth is I
almost failed those couple of grades
because those were the years when I
first immigrated Canada and at that time
I didn’t know English or French a space
with a lot of language and social
barriers I had horrible grades not
necessarily because I wasn’t intelligent
or I was just lazy at school no I
honestly couldn’t understand the words
that my teachers were even saying let
alone understanding the homework I can
communicate with my classmates because
of this language barrier and from being
faced with racial stereotypes on a daily
basis to being very secure due to my
Inessa T my accent at that time or even
like the food that I brought from home
because it’s no different no wonder I
had difficulty learning in school I was
so concerned about fitting in as a
minority thankfully I eventually
overcame the problems that came with
immigration but to this day nothing
frustrates me more than when students
with higher grades think that they’re
bad
and others simply because they have
better marks or when teachers there to
view some of their students as less
capable just because of their
performance at school sure some people
might not be naturally talented and
subjects such as algebra but does that
honestly mean that they’re less smart
and why can’t we also see that mental
illnesses bullying financial security
family issues and other factors do limit
some people’s ability to do well at
school now does that mean that they
don’t have the potential to succeed of
course not so numbers don’t tell you
everything and the problem with our
current education system right now
is that we have a one-size-fits-all kind
of deal but we know that students have
different needs strengths passions no
two brains are the same and just like
Richard Williams said if a doctor was to
prescribe the same exact medicine to all
of his students it would be a disaster
right because so many of their patients
would get sick yet when it comes to
school this is exactly what happens we
have one system and we just expect
everybody to follow it now I’m not
saying that grading is useless and it’s
all the teacher’s fault because teachers
are actually stuck in the same system
that was imposed on them just like it
was on the students and we can’t just
blame the policymakers of Education
either because it’s not like there’s an
obvious way to do this we can’t just
overturn the current system completely
and say oh let’s just abolish the
grading system and consider every
student individually because that’s just
not realistic or at least not yet
however until we do improve the way we
educate our future generation there is
something you can do to help re-instill
students desires to go to school and
that is to
change our perspective on what grades
really mean and to realize that the
numbers do not define their intelligence
or potential looking back on history we
can easily find people who despite not
being at the top of their class they had
brilliant minds think of Sir Isaac
Newton who received horrible grades in
high school
think of Albert Einstein who also
received mediocre grades
similarly Thomas Edison was called
mentally ill by his teachers but he is
now known as a person who lights up our
lives literally so if you want to
realize the potential of our society we
need to shift the focus away from
academic performance alone instead
encouraging the desire to learn should
be schools focus not just the grace that
we receive it shouldn’t be about the
comparative achievement but rather the
long-term progress of our students so
instead of relying on grace to measure
someone’s success potential or intellect
we should just use them as feedback on
their learning and we need to stop
treating those that have lower grades as
inferior and when we can stop
marginalizing students with lower grace
and when we can stop forcing students to
believe that their grace is the only
indicator of success that’s when we will
better and truly encourage the leaders
[Music]
[Applause]
you [Music]