Of the 22.9 million students who went to school on Monday for the opening of classes, most were definitely told to study hard. “Good grades equate to good life!” Reflex advice.
But how many do you think shied away from a reflex answer and, instead, responded, “Why bother?”
Some years ago, I heard a mother voice her opposition against the formal education system. “Hindi naman talaga totoo yung grades–grades na yan. Yung asenso, nasa diskarte ng tao.” Her son, who was entering second grade, was within an earshot of the hot take.
While we can all agree that what the mother said holds water to some extent, it was certainly not something meant for the ears of a kid starting to establish his feel on schooling. The notion shakes the foundation of the student’s belief in the system, or any system for that matter, at a young age.
The mother’s sentiment becomes even more dicey, given that digital natives like that boy have access to living proofs, from random Facebook posts showing luminaries who skipped school but still made it anyway, to the deplorable under-qualified government officials elected or appointed to office they regularly see on TV. Again, why bother with school, right?
But the system is important, and so are grades. This is not to say that high remarks and recognition are the be-all and end-all of education or post-school success. If anything, grades reflect the truly important matter in formal education, and that’s developing the habit to succeed
It’s the lesson that good grades or goals require effort, diligence, preparation and perseverance. When life doesn’t give you shortcuts, there’s a concrete method, a trusted process in achieving any goal. These qualities of trained excellence can even take a student farther in life than his straight A’s ever will.
Such was the lesson I picked up from one of my memorable college professors. He was our venerable logic teacher in second year. First impressions last, and his certainly did. He looked old but not frail; self-assured but without arrogrance.
During our introductory session with him, and this is not an exaggeration, he spent more than 30 minutes talking about his accomplishments alone. Our class went from amazed by the achievements to bored with what we eventually regarded as self-aggrandizement. But looking back now with a clearer understanding of what his body of work stood for, it’s nothing short of outstanding.
Anyway, he also said during that first meeting that over the course of his career as a professor, no student had ever pulled off the highest grade of 1.0 in any of his class. He added that if anyone were to achieve that feat, he would personally parade that student throughout the college building. Everyone from our class took it as a challenge.
However, we were put in our place quickly enough. It didn’t take long before we realized why no one had been able to get a near-perfect grade from him. Every week was hell week.
Soon enough, most of the class was burning eyebrows not to earn 1.0, but to simply survive and hang on for a 3.0. At the end of the semester, more than half of the class flunked the subject.
I made it through and I remember studying so hard for that class, I felt my temples beat. Reading wasn’t enough to pass, I thought. Indirectly, the professor required a certain level of diskarte. For one lesson, we had to device a melodic jingle just to keep the items in our head.
It was a challenging subject but a fun and memorable ride, nonetheless. More than the lessons covered, what stuck were the discipline and habits I formed—and discovered to be capable of—to meet the subject’s requirements. And those cannot be graded.