Why education is rapidly losing sight of its true purpose

By Taylor St. Germain
Editor-in-Chief

It seems as though, as the years go by, education becomes increasingly more competitive. With college admissions turning into a cut throat battle, the atmosphere at Costa has transitioned to a less welcoming, more stressful environment.

For centuries, the education system has had one primary goal: to give students the knowledge they need to be successful in life. As this may be the ideal intent for schools nationwide, Costa has developed a more urgent necessity for a 4.0 grade point average.

The school ideology has become completely grade oriented, pulling the focus away from comprehension of ideas and topics. Today’s students have become consumed with the idea that they must be admitted to an Ivy League College or graduate high school as valedictorian.

While this attitude may encourage students to work diligently, the end result is not effective. Seeing as the overall concentration is just on the amount of points accumulated rather than the understanding of the lessons, most of the work done is effectively meaningless.
T
eachers add to this stigma by creating meticulous grading and rounding policies. Students become strung up over the smallest of points, in fear that their grade and college acceptance will suffer.
In addition, the use of a bell distribution grading system to determine how many of each grade there should be is flawed. Teachers should strive to get their students to comprehend the material, rather than tailoring their class to a standard grade distribution ideology.

This stress and anxiety that students feel, due to grades and overwhelming school work, takes away from the overall appeal to a student. Students have become less well-rounded and more fixated on schoolwork. With colleges looking to find multifaceted candidates, this fixation on academics is not beneficial for students in the long run.

With this anxiety, our society is beginning to create a generation of overwhelmed, disturbed citizens entering the workforce. Soon the main concentration for working people will be to reach the top, not by diligence and hard work, but rather scam. This concentration on numerical values, over content, will create citizens that are lackadaisical and inefficient.