I'd have thought grades are simply a benchmark from whence real education starts or, as has been the case over the past five decades, when indoctrination starts !
Only those who can see through the indoctrination & those smart ones who can exploit indoctrination end up ok !

The reality is that grades are important in the
world we live in. They are a means of determining
university and college admission. They often play
a role in job applications, and in future success.

Of course it is crucial that grades do accurately
and fairly reflect a student's work.
Grading with fairness and accuracy is time consuming
and unfortunately this is often in short supply for
many teachers.

Research also shows that putting good grades above
everything else can limit a person's ability to
learn. It can discourage risk-taking, creativity,
and engagement which are crucial elements in a
productive, rewarding, and ultimately
successful school experience.

What we need is less emphasis on the importance of
grades and more emphasis on a successful school
experience and the desire for kids to engage and
want to learn. I don't see it as a student problem,
but a teacher education problem.

In the lower levels, exam results & thus grades are the teachers most reliable measure of a kids progress. They are also the parents main indication that the kid is doing well, or needs extra help.

It indicates to both which kids are most in need of a bit of extra help. For the good teacher the kids response & improvement or not helps them learn ways of helping different kids achieve. Without these measures of their progress the kid mighty as well be playing video games.

Collectively they are a good guide to the ability of the teacher, which is of course, why any form of testing is so hated by the lousy teacher.

Remember the teachers effort to put the fear of god into kids when the school inspector is about to visit. Smarter kids realised the inspector was there to evaluate the teacher, not the kids. Does this still happen in our union controlled schools?

In the final year they become a kids passport to a job. An employer does not have much to go on when hiring a kid fresh out of school. An honest report card is most important item to guide them.

I once hired a girl with VHA, "very high achiever", grade for secretarial studies from a Gold Coast High School. I wanted someone to take some of the load off my secretary who was becoming overloaded with management duties. She did not even know the form of a letter, & I let her go as the saying goes.

I made a mental note, & never bothered to interview a kid from that school again. Teachers can only get away with such misinformation if the school management is poor, & no importance is placed on grades. You can only feel sorry for kids living in the catchment of schools with such slack management

The meaning of education:

"The action or process of teaching someone especially in a school, college, or university."

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/education

By the way, are there flaws in that definition.

From the page: http://www.theodysseyonline.com/grading-is-degrading it shows a cartoon which says:

"Everybody has to take the same exam, please climb that tree".

The image on the page shows a range of animals.... and you know that not all of the animals are going to be able to climb the tree, like the elephant for example.

So you could argue for some people exams and what comes from these, being grades and results, say like a 99.3, a 76.7 or a 49.8 - are just that - a white elephant. What do these numbers really mean in real terms?

Yes, you've jammed some information into your mind to complete an exam, but that's about it, but I don't think it's anything to overly proud of.

For many the grades they receive are seen as important and what is less important is the learning itself and what one can gain from learning.

Would someone want a B in a class in which they gained a lot learning wise and gained a better understanding of the subject, or get an easy A in a class and learn nothing? A lot of students would rather get an A, move on, with some willing to cheat their way through the system to get an A and learn nothing much in real terms.

More detail can be found at: http://www.theodysseyonline.com/grading-is-degrading. It's a very interesting page to read.

I don't think people should have to prove anything in terms of themselves to a school and their demands or what a teacher dictates. School reports, exams and grades do not describe your advancement as a whole. Growth often comes from within, something others will not know about or see.

Nathan,

From about year 5 exams and tests are designed not only to determine what facts the pupil can remember, but his understanding and ability to apply the knowledge and techniques learnt.

The analogy of animals asked to climb a tree is at best infantile. The "tree" everyone is being asked to climb is life in the real world and while the education is different for doctors or engineers, I would hope that my doctor/ lawyer/ accountant is more than just a nice bloke.

Hasbeen,
You are on the money in identifying school management as being part of the problem.

In QLD it is quite possible that the VHA student you temporality employed had a similar education to that of many students that I saw when I worked in QLD schools.

She probably had a very friendly and easy-going teacher who covered parts of the curriculum in class. The most important part of the "learning" process, whoever, probably came in the week before the exam when the student carefully remembered answers to the "revision questions and answers" given by the teacher.

These answers only needed to be remembered for a short period of time.

The student was happy because of the good results.
The parents were happy because of the good results.
The teacher was happy because of the good results.
The HOD was happy because of the good results and lack of discipline issues passed on from the teacher.
The Admin. was happy because of the good results and lack of discipline issues passed on by the teacher.

I have seen this scam of teaching students the exam prior to the exam take place for years.

It was practiced most by the teachers and HODs who tended to use it on the classes where the "above average and better" students were placed.

The worst I say were the Maths HODs who trained their students to pass the exams all of which were known in advance.

The previously unseen difficult questions designed to separate VHA and HA students from the rest were simply remembered procedures in these teachers' and HOD's classes.

You can only get away with this is there is no or little oversight from the school administration.