by Chris Kaczmarski

Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and Bill Gates all have two things in common. One: they all reached billionaire status. Second: these kings of industry never graduated college. They valued practical experience and problem solving over book knowledge.

Are numbers and grades a reflection of our performance, or just a measure of how well we can regurgitate information? Furthermore, is it fair to evaluate a student’s knowledge based on a grading scale and standardized tests? It limits us to the expectations of the teacher. To the majority of students a bad grade is disheartening and stressful. Students are given homework assignments, quizzes, tests, and projects daily. We have become so consumed in getting a good grade on assignments that we’ve forgotten that learning and achievement is the goal.

With such demanding lifestyles, some teenagers are being asked to do what seems impossible to others. To survive, cheating and doing assignments carelessly has become the norm. The fear of a missed assignment or a poor score sets off red flashing lights and an anything-goes mentality develops.

According to Teenhelp.com, the most common stress instigator was school work, and it reportedly accounts for about 78% of teen stress. Not only is the obsession with getting good grades affecting a student’s performance in school, but it is also affecting their health. Students sacrifice sleep, consume excessive amounts of caffeine and often give up physical activity because of exhaustion. It is anything but a balanced lifestyle.

The I-have-to-get-an-A-at-all-costs mentality has turned students into human vacuum cleaners that too often suck up arbitrary information, also known as garbage, only to dump it out into the wastebasket we know as test day. Sure, every once in a while small amounts of information cling to the waste bag we call our brain, but usually it's just suck and dump in high school.

We’re so worried about getting an “A” that we spit the material back out on to a paper without considering its value in the real world. We are neither able to absorb nor use the information in real-life situations, but hey, we got the grade so that’s all that matters because that’s what colleges and our teachers care about.

At a young age, we are told that we need to go to college and get a college degree to be successful in life. Most of us haven’t questioned that. However, to get a college to consider you for admissions, grade point average (GPA) and SAT or ACT scores are the primary concern. If it isn’t up to the school's standards, we are put on a waiting list or flat out denied acceptance. Consideration of activities, place in the community or your potential benefit to a college is always an afterthought.

Does being able to decipher a cryptic passage in twenty-five minutes really measure our potential? Some of us might not be able to solve the standardized test puzzle, but that doesn’t mean we can’t solve a college-level calculus equation with ease or start an organization that will make a difference in the world. But, since we only got a 1500 on the SAT, we're not going to make the cut at a so called: "prestigious institution of higher learning."

Who says we need to go to college to validate our worth in the world? People tend to forget that the military or tradesmen are respectable career paths. In my opinion, I think these are the kind of people that best exhibit problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities. They're the ones who have the answers and perspectives college campuses need.

Society has put a premium on getting good grades, acing tests, and attending college. In reality, grades and tests are just an attempt to try to organize and group the masses. They do this by basing our smarts and abilities on a number system, and not very well, might I add. We need to start making people understand that there is more than statistics, there’s reality. Grades are not the best way to measure how well people will perform in the real world or even college. Grading is completely subjective and to solely use this system to evaluate a student is a disservice to any scholar who doesn’t fit the mold.

The cheating and dehumanization of young people may be part of the reason we lack the creativity to solve our nation’s current issues. If students need to take short cuts and cheat to get by in school then who’s to say that future doctors, lawyers, professors, politicians, and various other “professionals” won’t cut corners. In the end, that's going to cost us all more than we can afford and that's the number that should matter most.