Students are spending too much time stressing about grades

By Sarah Howlan

April 19, 2021

Being a senior in high school, I have been told year after year that getting good grades is important, and that I need them to graduate and get to college. While some of this is true, I believe it is the wrong message to be preaching to students.

Starting in elementary school, teachers have drilled the idea into our minds that earning good grades is the only path to success. On our report cards, teachers give us number or letter grades that are mainly weighted by our grades on tests and quizzes. If you score poorly on a few tests during the quarter, it could be very hard for you to raise your grade. Because of this, students stress so much on trying to ace one test that they aren’t really absorbing the material. What good is that going to do in the future?

I constantly hear my friends talk about how they got an A on their test, but by the time the next unit comes, they have already forgotten everything they just “studied”. This is because when they are studying, they are just focused on reviewing the material for their test, not for long term memorization.

“I get so focused on getting the ‘A’ that I am not really learning the material, I’m just memorizing how to do it for my test. I forget everything afterward,” said Jacklyn Mantica, a senior at Colonie.

In doing this, it causes lots of problems for students when their classes move forward. Since they are not truly learning the basics, it makes it harder for students to keep up when the class moves faster and the material becomes more difficult and complex.

In addition to this, students are so focused on how their report card will look, that they don’t even realize they aren’t learning anything. In 11th grade, I took Pre-Calc and I aced all of my tests. This year in Calculus, I felt like I was left to reteach myself everything I should have already known from last year.

During lessons, my teacher would often not deeply explain certain concepts because we “already learned this last year”. In my mind, I was thinking, “Hold up. When did we learn this??” Because I was focused on the grades, I didn’t truly learn the material.

If your goal is to go to an ivy league college, you will need to have amazing grades. There are very few schools you could apply to where grades mean nothing. They do play a big role in your school career; however, there are better methods of receiving those grades. Students often find themselves stuck in the pattern of just cramming material for short term memorization and then just forgetting it after the test. This will ultimately backfire immediately in college. The kids who took the time to properly receive their grades will thrive, while the ones who were left cramming will quickly fall behind.

If teachers take time to properly review students’ homework and correct their mistakes, instead of just putting a grade on them, students can learn more. The repetition of doing the same kind of problems can help engrave it into their minds, and hands on learning is beneficial as well.

Students need to understand that grades are not everything and they will not carry you your whole way through life. Knowing this will ease some of their anxiety and allow them to perform better on tests. How many people do you know who can recite everything from their Calculus textbook?