Grades and Losing: Which is More Important, School or Education?

Which is More Important, School or Education?
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To start off, it’s important to differentiate school with education. The school is an institution; it is limited as a place. Education, on the other hand is not limited to the classroom. It can happen in different ways. Education constantly happens within a social environment. As the famous saying goes, “do not let your schooling interfere with your education.” This means that when it comes to education, there should be no limits. It should not be dependent on books being discussed in lectures being led by instructors. Education and learning is ubiquitous it’s in the daily experiences of students.
Learning only by schooling will not do anything good for the growth and development of an individual (Von Klemperer, 1956). There is a world beyond textbooks and written exams. Students who do not see the value of education outside the four walls of the classroom are usually the ones who do not become well-adjusted to the society. This is why the mentality towards schooling should be changed. Students must not be obliged to break their backs on schoolwork when they do not know its relevance in real life.
Chasing Grades and Losing at Life
Lately, many students have been constantly complaining about having to work hard to get good grades. Working hard can sometimes mean compromising their health because they can’t get enough sleep and it comes to the point that they need to skip meals just because they need to do schoolwork. This is very unhealthy both in physical and mental contexts. Students become so attached to the notion that their lives rely on grades that they forget the true meaning of education and learning. Students get the feeling that it’s all or nothing when it comes to grades. This can be rooted in the traditional perception towards the school system that invalidates the value of learning outside the classroom.
Chasing grades makes students forget about what they really want to study. Sometimes, instructors can also be blamed for this kind of perception and for the fact that they also put pressure on the students to do more than what they only can accomplish. Aside from instructors, some parents also have this mentality that they must push their children to the limit. This is psychologically unhealthy for students and this defeats the core value of education as something that should be emancipatory. This kind of perspective is already embedded in the consciousness of the society which calls for the need to have a more progressive perspective towards the school system which would result to progressive educational systems that would benefit the whole community.
The idea of chasing grades in an all or nothing kind of context is the same kind of logic that is applied when it comes how a person is only seen as a legitimate individual through his or her scholastic achievements. This is very fallacious because every single individual has unique ways of learning. Scholastic achievements are not the only standard measurement for one’s competency in the society. Many individuals suffer from the kind of mentality that they need to rely on their grades and achievements in order to have their capabilities legitimized. No one can deny that these are great achievements, the problem lies in ascribing this kind of standard for everyone. Not all are achievers within the academia; some excel in their own fields. This proves that education can never be limited. People still get educated even after they finish school. And most of the time, experiences are truly the greatest teachers.
Social Learning Environment
In theories of child development and learning, scholars identify the social learning environment as the multi-dimensional space children and students are in which help nurture their learning abilities; this can be classrooms and even their own homes. In order to be functional, this environment should cater to the desire to instill learning skills and strategies to the children. This environment should also have cooperation within a community, between instructors, parents and other community members to assist children so that they would be able to learn by sharing experiences in the society.
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