Grades Vs Comprehension, Debate Options

[*Programmer*]

When it comes to Academic "Comprehension". Students tend to worry more about getting an "A" in there classes by remembering the work temporoary with no intension after taking a test or quiz to apply it to there everyday lives. rather then learning the work and applying it into there everyday use so they won't be caught off guard by it again. they forget about it and are just happy with the grade they recieve afterward.

i do admit some work may seem pretty irrelivant. but why does the grade matter more then the work that you should be comprehending and applying to your everyday life. as long as you comprehend it correctly you should be ok. You are at school to learn or that is what i was lead to believe.

NOW...... The "grade" is a alphebetic rating system which a school uses to categorize your strenghs and weaknesses...YOU SHOULD NOT SEE THE GRADE AS THE ONLY REASON YOU ARE DOING ALL THIS WORK. and as such...you should only use it as a TOOL to learn more in the area's you and your teacher feel you need work on. . The Work is what you should be comprehending. NOT THE GRADE. I feel learning is it's own reward.

(i did not have time to SpellCheck this...ill edit with corrections later)

How do you feel about this..? please don't hesitate to disagree with me

[mai_z]

well, i dunno, i'm using quite a bit of calculus and trig in physics right now...

I would actually find that I use math from my discreet math class in physics more than calculus.

I highly doubt that anything from Algebra - Calculus is "useless". Even building a basic robot takes some mechanics of conceptual physics and algebra/geometry.

She hardly said algebra or calculus was "useless", and i'll point out that in all my 12th grade math courses (i'm in Canada btw), it's far different than gr 9 or 10. In earlier grades you learn tools that will help you manipulate math formulas and ideas later on, but as you move up it becomes more of trying to grasp more abstract concepts.




Back to grades vs. comprehension. No system is perfect, and I would agree with anyone who said the system has many many flaws. However, if you took twenty A students, and twenty C students. I would be willing to bet that there would be more 'A' students with better comprehension of the subject. Also, even if some of the "A" students only understood or retained the information for a short period of time (eg. for the time of the test) chances are they would have learned at least a small amount of knowledge which they could use in the future.

[*RiC3xBoy*]

She hardly said algebra or calculus was "useless"

Well she said...

if you only need math for simple things like that we would stop taking math after 7th grade.

.....and in my school, the normal(whatever that means...) students would take algebra in the 9th grade.

[mai_z]

Well she said...

.....and in my school, the normal(whatever that means...) students would take algebra in the 9th grade.

God. Read the thread! She said "IF that were why we learned math" which was in response to when Justin said that we used math for things like figuring how much wood was needed in a bridge.

Hmmm I think the origonal poster is grasping something that eludes the other posts.  The importance of knowledge and education is beyond "how usefull is this information to me".  That's not the point.  The world is something of an anigma to most people and it costs them because in an increasingly small world ignorance is NOT bliss.  You may not have use for advance calculous or discrete mathmatics but there is no disputing the importance of such things in the world.

Learning is a way to see the world for what it really is, to see the importance of everything.  A clear view not only lets us appreciate the complexity of the world but it lets us better navigate our lives through it.

You....are on a whole other page than I am. And if you're on topic, then I'm definately not because I thought we were discussing the correlation between comprehension of material and grades, not seeing the world as a complex whatever it is that you think it is.