Education and Grades

If you don't already know I am a part time college professor.  I teach '3d Rendering and Animation for Interior Architecture.'  It's a long title but I pretty much help students make visual reality of their, or their clients, designs and ideas.  We recently finished our Spring semester and I got to grade all of my students hard work for the semester (not my favorite thing to do by the way!)  After I was done with all my grading I came to a realization that I'm sure many have I came to before; I think grades are dumb and that the education system needs some serious help.  Let me dive a little deeper into my argument here...

Grades are dumb.
The reason I say this is because I think students are losing focus on what is most important; their education and growth.  Instead of students focusing on the material and their understanding of that material, they focus on the grade and what they need to do in order to improve that grade.  For example, in my class we have one major final project that accounts for most of the students grade.  Every semester I offer up extra credit, if they can go above and beyond I will give them extra points to help boost their grade.  Constantly I find the students spending more time trying to figure out how to get the extra credit rather than just focusing on getting a good grade on the final itself (which pretty much guarantees them a good grade in the class anyway.)  Maybe I should stop offering up extra credit?!?

I sometimes feel like if the grade wasn't in the students way then we could spend more time on enjoying their education and growth.  That it would also force a student to truly learn the material being presented.  I can't tell you how many times during my lectures a student will ask, "will this be on the test?"  If I say no they stop listening, if I say yes I could be lying.  Either way I want the student to learn because they want to be more knowledgeable, not because material may or may not be on a test.

Ok I could ramble on more about this topic, and my frustrations, but I want to keep this short...          

Education system needs some serious help.  
As I was writing this blog post I added in this part.  I've been doing a lot of self development and reflection lately and I've come to the conclusion that the education system needs a lot of help.  Specifically the curriculums of the degrees.  I received my Masters in Architecture from Texas Tech and I'm still not sure how economics or astronomy have ever improved my professional life.  I'm not saying they aren't important to some people, I'm just saying they haven't done a thing for me.  I took them simply because I had to. Because someone somewhere made a degree path said I should (oh and I couldn't get that degree without taking them).  I could have skipped both of those classes (I think I did for the most part) and my life wouldn't be any different.

Most colleges have a list of courses you have to take; mathematics, science, economics, public speaking, etc.  What if instead we replace some of these useless courses with what I'll call 'life improvement courses.'  Basic nutrition, time management, communication, self development, stress management, etc.  Courses that affect people's daily lives and improve their life and well being.  Ok I'm beginning to ramble I'm sure but  some of the most important lessons I've learned have come from a $10 book instead of a $500 class.

Conclusion
I may have gotten a bit off topic but I had to get some of these thoughts out of my head.  I guess in the end all I'm trying to say is let's focus on what is going to improve our lives the best way possible.  I have my students do this exercise and I suggest you do it to.  Find someone who has the job or life you want and ask them what they did to get there.  Once you have your answer focus on those same actions.  Maybe we should be taking more action and control of our lives, and learning from the people who have the lives we aspire to, and less from systems that have been in place for far too long.