- In school, you are taught a lesson and then given a test.
- In life, you are given a test that teaches you a lesson.
70% is NOT OK. 70% stinks. Name one occupation in which it is OK to be right only 70% of the time. What job lets you be totally wrong three times out of every ten -- and keep your job more than a week or two? How many mistakes can a surgeon make? Can a grocery checker give out correct change only 70% of the time? Can a teacher be wrong about 30% of what she teaches? Would you pay a guy who contracted to paint your house, and then quit after only painting three sides? That's 75% -- in school that was OK! Face it: even a farmworker will be fired the first day if he leaves behind 30% of the oranges he is being paid to pick. In real life, jobs require you to know all the answers, and do 100% of the work, all the time. How many mistakes can an airline pilot make?
Only in school, never in life. Do you get to try again, with no penalty, after a car crash, after cancer, after a divorce, after being fired for stealing? You may get another shot, but only after a serious penalty. And your first failure may be a monkey on your back for the rest of your life. If the schools have taught you that it's no big deal to fail, because you'll get another try, we have done you a real disservice.
Yes, they can. They're not going to "curve the grades" so that only a small percent fail. Take a business, for instance. Imagine it's YOUR business. You're only going to hire employees who have the level of skills that you want. You will not hire, or will quickly fire, all who don't measure up -- even if that means "failing" 98%. If you don't follow such "unfair" practices, your business itself will soon fail. Would you trust a company that never rejected or fired any employees, no matter how lazy, incompetent, or dishonest they were?
After eight years of this being true, it takes some kids a long time to realize that it is no longer true. After high school it's even worse. The world does not care how long you've been friends, or if your "self esteem" will suffer when your "peers" move on without you. Do you think those "peers" are going to pass up chances to move up in life to stay back with you? "Social promotion" only happens in school. If we've trained you to expect it, we've hurt you.
If that's how we've trained you, you should sue us! If we've taught you that in Biology, for instance, you only need to learn 30 things this week to pass the quiz on Friday, or that in English there are only 50 facts you need to know about Romeo & Juliet - - the facts you drilled on with worksheets and know will be on the test -- then we've taught you incorrectly. It won't be like that in college -- or in life. A real test is a SAMPLE: out of the hundreds or thousands of things you are expected to know, a test samples a few. That's why it's hard to study for a real test, like SAT: there isn't just a short set of facts you can memorize because you know they'll be on the test.
Many schools work that way, so it's not your fault if you think that. But it's a CHEAP FRAUD. If you've learned to learn by sitting back and letting the teacher do stuff to you, then we have seriously stunted your educational growth. Here's the way it's done in colleges and other centers of real learning: the teacher provides the opportunity and guidance for learning, and maybe some clarification now and then. But learning is something the STUDENT does himself -- to himself. He goes after it ACTIVELY. He learns far more than he will ever be tested on, more than a teacher can possibly drum into him if he just sits back passively and lets himself be taught at. A real student uses a teacher, as just one of his resources, to get all the education he can. If you only learn reluctantly, passively, what the teacher can teach you, then you're doomed to never learn much, and forget it quickly. Learning is something YOU DO, something you GET, not something done to you.
Yes, I'm afraid we've taught you that, too. Look at all the effort we put into getting low-ability kids to pass state minimum competency tests, compared to how little we work on maximizing your SAT. Look at all the flash and glamour surrounding high school football, compared to that surrounding academic competition -- or just getting top grades. Do we try to protect the "self esteem" of "poorly motivated" or "at risk" students by ignoring or playing down the superior accomplishments of superior students? Are we so afraid of having a high "failure rate" that we lower our standards to the point where the smart kids feel no sense of accomplishment at getting an A? Do we allow a subculture to develop among kids that says, "Don't be too smart -- that'll make the rest of us look bad"? Does school ever convey the idea that "guys like Shakespeare and Einstein and Darwin were nerds with lots of crazy ideas to confuse us -- you don't really need to know any of that stuff."? If that's the lesson, subliminal or overt, that we've taught, we should be closed down. That's the exact opposite of what we should be doing. We have been hurting you, not helping you.
If you're one of our victims, if we've unintentionally taught you any of these truly destructive attitudes, we're sorry -- and guilty. Not every student lets the educational system victimize him, though. Some have refused to learn these attitudes, refused to become victims. They have learned how to learn, despite the system. They have learned to use us, and they will learn far more than we can ever teach.
If you're a victim and never realize it, you'll join the bleak statistics: another washout product of the American school system, with a third-rate education and no competitive skills. If you do realize it, whining won't help (we probably taught you that "skill", too). You have to decide what you really want and need, and go after it. Quit being a victim. Refuse to be a victim any longer. Use the system to get every bit of knowledge out of it you can. Don't let your willing-passive-victim friends hold you back. Go for everything you can get.
Use or repost at your pleasure, just leave my name on it, please.
Nobody gets a 70 any more. Even if the kid only comes to class 45% of the time and hands in his papers late, his family’s lawyer will call the president’s office to make sure the kid passes.
BTW - many courses don’t have exams, only papers that you can download from the internet. And pop quizzes - not a chance any professor would dare give one.