Grades

Grades tell you how you did at one point in time (yes, there’s a point in time) and nothing more.

There’s too much hype about grades. I am not saying that getting good grades are bad but there’s one thing that students should understand—they should be able to live up to their grades.


In the school where I’m studying, it is the goal (sometimes the dream) of every student to get that flat 1 grade--1 being the highest mark one can receive. But having a flat 1 in one’s transcript can be hazardous to one’s health especially if it’s achieved mnemonically or through memorization and not through critical studying.

Imagine an applicant applying for a job and the human resource department personnel in charge for hiring saw those flat 1’s on the applicant’s transcript. The HR people would be impressed. Two possibilities here: if the applicant passed the exam and the interview and the applicant would be hired with flying colors. But if the applicant failed miserably in both there is a possibility that the applicant and the school where the applicant came from will be blacklisted or even sued for…er…human rights violation.
Of course applicants who have a lot of 5s (the lowest grade) don’t have problems with applying for they will never get past the guards.
But let us assume that the applicant with the flat 1s did get hired. What do you think will happen to the applicant?
“The new hire has a flat 1 in English let us delegate to the new hire all the memo writing; look the new hire also has flat 1 in math let us also delegate to the new hire the accounting, the petty cash, everything….”

Of course if the applicant with lots of 5s gets hired the applicant with lots of 5s will have no problem with the work load for the applicant with lots of 5’s will be equipped with pushcarts. The applicant with the lots of 5s main problem is unloading the loads.

Grades on grades

Here are my grades on grades. This is based on air and the margin of error is between 99.5-99.9 percent.

1-1.2 Very employable. Either will be president of the company before forty or will commit suicide before the probationary stage ends. Or, if wasn’t able to live up to the grades, will be fired before even being hired and will be declared an anathema.

1.3-1.5 Highly employable. Either will be VP before the age of forty or will be a corporate nomad ever seeking that VP-hood for the rest of their lives.

1.5-1.7 Employable. Will be a good employee with a healthy sex life. Will never rise beyond supervisorial level and will retire loyal to the company.

1.8-2.5 Moderately employable. Most will be good rank and file employees.

2.5-3.5 Slightly employable. Union leader material and union buster material also.

3.5-4.5 Moderately slightly employable. Good manual laborers.

4.5-5. Forget about it. Most will spend the rest of their days thinking what course they took and why they took it and how they failed it.

It is well known fact that there parents who drive their children nuts by setting grade standards that are either too expensive for their financial ability or too high for their children’s intellectual capacity. Realistically speaking, parents urge their children to try to do well because they connect good grades and good school with employability and opportunities. Well, all parents want that. But, where’s the children decisions? Forcing a child, overtly or covertly, to take up a course purely for economic reasons will result to unhappiness. When it’s all about employment then what they get is employment, then they die unhappy.

When nurses became in demand, nursing schools mushroomed. When call center agent demand rose, we have training centers for callboys and callgirls sprouting everywhere.
What’s in is in…if there’s a demand for jobs washing incontinent retirees we’ll have a school for that too. We did…er... I mean we do?!