What do grades mean?

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," the flight attendant began. "Your captain this evening learned only 70% of what he needed to know in order to fly this complicated jet airplane. Enjoy your flight!"

Or how about the following scenario:

As the nurse wheels your gurney towards the operating room, you notice the surgeon's certificate on the wall stating that she learned only 73% of what she needed to know to operate on you. The next certificate stated that the anesthesiologist learned only 68% of what he needed to know to put you under safely, but an extra-credit book report allowed the teacher to round his final grade average up to 70%. 

Frightening, isn't it? But we don't give it a second thought when it comes to grades in school. Too many students and parents alike think that if the students can only get that passing grade, they're okay. But have they learned and retained the skills needed to function proficiently in life and in the workplace?

Grades are supposed to represent a percentage of how much a student has actually learned or mastered, but do they truly? 

• What if a student copied off another student's work? 
• What if one student did the majority of the work for a group grade while everyone else in the group coasted? 
• What if the parent did the homework or the big project for their child? 
• What if a research assignment was simply copied and pasted or even plagiarized the night before it was due? 
• What if the teacher had to constantly coax, threaten, or beg a student to turn in something before the end of the six weeks, and finally accept late work and a poor effort just so the student received a grade?

Little or no learning has taken place in each of those situations, yet the student received a grade. 

Is this the kind of workforce we want to do business 

with in all areas of our lives? 

Everyone pays when the learning process is missed in the pursuit of 'making the grade.' Grades are important in one's educational career, but they're meaningless in the workplace if the skills and knowledge are absent. 

One must be careful to not miss the learning 

in the pursuit of the grade. 

And yet it happens daily.