How Grade Obsession Harms Real Learning

When we first started our afterschool program, parents came to us with shining hope in their eyes and report cards in their hands.

Majority of them said the same thing: “We just want to see an improvement in their grades. ”They came to us with a single goal: to see their children’s grades improve.

The children echoed the same fear-driven urgency — “Please teach us quickly, ma’am. Just give us the formulas or answers so we know how to write them in the exam.”

That’s when we realized something heartbreaking — these children weren’t afraid of learning. They were afraid of being wrong.

The Slow Death of Curiosity

Math, for them, was no longer about discovering patterns or marveling at logic — it was about memorizing formulae and applying them mechanically instead of understanding how those formula came about or developing a clear understanding of the problem statement.

Literature was no longer a mirror of society, a glimpse into the life and times of the author, the culture that prevailed. No, why would anyone care to deal with a tryst with Shakespeare and Coleridge when you can just write what the teacher dictated and score the top scores in class?

History became all about memorizing about kings, dates and years, battles won and wars lost, instead of seeing them as windows to peek into the past and understanding the role the people (from commoners to emperors) of the past had - how they changed society, how they influenced culture, how they shaped civilizations, how they contributed to the world we see today.

Geography became a boring task of memorizing weather patterns, names of states and places, and names of rivers. It was no longer about developing an understanding of how geography influences day-to-day life - the food we eat, the homes we build, the clothes we wear. Do you know our genes can be influenced by where our ancestors lived geographically? No ma'am, just give us the answer for what crops are grown in what soil and we'll memorize it enough to write it down correctly in the exam. “Ewwww! Some people eat any animal they find including polar bears”. Well, it doesn’t matter to them that people in polar regions cannot grow food crops that people in the tropics get to enjoy. Tundra and taiga are, of course, just geographical terms and definitions to be memorized for exams.

Even science had lost its spark. Physics droned on as theory, biology became rote vocabulary, and chemistry reduced to endless equations that induced more dread than wonder. Hey! Let’s go and watch the eclipse today. Oh no, Sir, just show us how to draw the diagram. Have you ever seen what a plant cell looks like under the microscope? Oh yes, ma’am, the textbook has a picture; we’ll copy that. We made a volcano that erupts like one and smells like one using hydrochloric acid and potassium permanganate. But, Sir, this formula or this reaction is not a part of our curriculum. They looked on with lifeless eyes when we told them that when an acid that is used to clean bathrooms and a base that is used to clean drains can combine to form a solution of sodium chloride which is the salt we eat! Those listless eyes couldn’t see the beauty of chemistry, physics and biology around them because their teachers had always been in a hurry to complete the syllabus.

Education — which should have awakened curiosity — was producing anxiety instead.

When the System Teaches Fear, Not Thinking

The system these children grew up in rewarded repetition over reflection, accuracy over understanding, and grades over growth.

The result?
Children stopped asking why.
They stopped exploring how.
They stopped believing that learning could be joyful.

When critical thinking questions rewarded bookish, rehearsed answers, when creativity didn’t translate to scores and grades, when asking questions born of out of a thinking mind were met with “keep quiet and copy what I’ve written on the board”, and when the ability to memorize became a marker of “intelligence,” children learned one lesson very well — that curiosity is dangerous in a system that only values conformity.

The Tragedy of Misplaced Priorities

The emphasis on grades creates an illusion of achievement while quietly destroying the very capacities education is meant to build — curiosity, resilience, imagination, empathy, and courage.

A student who can memorize every war date but cannot empathize with those who lived through war is not educated.

A child who can recite every law of motion but has never experimented to see it in action has learned words, not wisdom.

Concepts that could have been so amazing to understand through exploration had been reduced to empirical statements in textbooks that they highlighted, memorized, retched out in the exam, and had forgotten.

This isn’t learning. This is not education. This will not help our children and adolescents develop a love for learning. This will not nurture in them curiosity and inquisitiveness. This will not beckon them to explore and experiment. This will not encourage them to question and challenge prejudices, stereotypes, and social concepts we have taken for granted.

It’s training — training to survive exams, not life.

Reclaiming Education From the Tyranny of Scores

True education should ignite curiosity, not extinguish it. It should empower learners to think, explore, question, and create — not to memorize and regurgitate. It should invite them to understand the why behind every what.

When we reduce education to scores and grades, we rob children of the joy of discovery. We rob society of future thinkers, innovators, and changemakers. We give rise to a population of dulled individuals who grind in the mundane and live their lives robbed of the thrill that is found in acquiring and assimilating knowledge. In silencing laughter, questions, arguments, discussions, and creative thinking, we silence the future.

A Call to Every Educator, Parent, and Policymaker

It’s about time must stop mistaking high scores for real learning.
We must nurture environments where children can experiment, fail, wonder, and rebuild — where thinking matters more than test results.

Because the purpose of education was never to create people who perform well under pressure — but people who can think deeply, act wisely, and live meaningfully.

It’s time to rebuild education — not around grades, but around growth.