Staff Editorial

The Issue: Too many students in high school, and especially at a college prep school, seem only to care about grades.
Our Stance: Grades are important, but they are not the only reflective element of a good education.

Don’t be afraid to like school.

These are the wise words of a departing senior who only recently came upon this realization.

When looking at this subject, one must initially ask, “What is the point of an education?”

Its Latin roots roughly make out a meaning of “lead out of.”

One could take this to mean leading out of ignorance, or perhaps leading out of the caves that humans lived in as cavemen.

Maybe it’s more simple and literal: Leading out of adolescence and into adulthood.

Either way, it is the striving for something greater than our natural, current human state.

In that sense, working solely for good grades does not fulfill that purpose.

Grades can be an indicator of what one has learned, but they are an incomplete system.

Surely, most students who actively take an interest in the subject matter will get decent grades, but too often it is easy to scrape by with an A without really actively learning anything.

Too often students have the attitude of learning just enough to get that A and nothing more.

This is the tough part of being a teacher, trying to get students to be as excited about the subject as they are.

Forcing students to think is key to a teacher’s job in getting students to delve into the material.

On the opposite end, really learning is a two-way street and it actually is important for students to think in class.

Take, for example, math. If a student goes through all of their years of math solely memorizing steps to math problems, they might get a decent grade, but will be poorly prepared for higher levels of thinking and comprehension in future classes.

But if they think and rationalize through every step, they will actually understand the material and be prepared for their next levels of math.

Learning simply to earn a letter grade on a transcript can make school a tedious process. Learning solely for the purpose of learning makes school enjoyable.

It is no longer a chore, and going to class can be an interesting task.

Plus, actually understanding the material through and through will give any student a head start in college. And in life.

That is something that straight A’s cannot necessarily do.

Staff Editorial by Rohan Keith Andresen ’12 and Alex Stanley ’12

Staff Editorial represent the view of The Roundup. Share your thoughts by emailing roundup@brophybroncos.org or leave comments online at roundup.brophyprep.org.