So you get a 50 percent on a test. Now most believe that is not a score to cheer about but when you think about it, getting half of the information right is not a terrible score. Universities, colleges and schooling systems across the United States make us crave perfection.
While striving for a 100 percent all the time is an admirable goal, it is not possible every single time. Now I am about to say a shocking fact. Are you ready? We are human. Some may know this while others may hope we are not. But being human means we make mistakes. We forget the definition of exocytosis. We forget to print out a piece of paper by a certain date.
By grading us on a scale of 0-100, we are encouraging perfection and when we do not achieve that, we are devastated. Because of that 50 percent, we may not get into that nursing program, medical school or any other graduate program. But humans make mistakes.
In the "real" world, sometimes getting something half right is a great accomplishment. For example, on the football field if the quarterback is making 75 percent of his throws, then he is well on his way to the Hall of Fame. Or if a baseball player is consistently batting .375, then he is offensive player of the year. If these players are being praised for doing something right half the time, then why are we rejected for it in the classroom?
I know what some of you may be thinking that some professions need outcomes that are close to perfect. Professions like a nurse or physician. Obviously we do not want a doctor saving only half the lives he treats but even they make mistakes.
Perfection is something that is hard to achieve and to make young people stress and worry over accomplishing this ideal is to put it bluntly insane. As a college student, I try to achieve 100 percents in everything I do. Whether it be in homework, participation, tests or even a dreaded pop quiz, but as I slowly learned, that is just not possible.
To see my fellow students get angry over an 8/10 or even the horrid 9/10 is sometimes sad to see. When we enter the real world, we will see that as long as we try our best in whatever we do, then we will be successful.
That is what we should be teaching in the classroom. Being human is what makes us unique. The fact that we make mistakes or sometimes cannot remember the whole periodic table is what makes us just human. I personally do not want to be some robot who just can sprout out definitions at every turn.
I want to make mistakes and learn from them. I do not want to be punished for my mistakes but accepted for them. Now I am not saying get rid of the grading system all together, but maybe modify it and not make a 7/10 some horrible grade that instills fear in future pre-med students like myself. Just remember as you are reading over our transcript and see maybe a lower grade; remember that you make mistakes, too. After all, I'm only human.
