Rabbi Noah Sonenberg
Director of Judaic Studies
I recall my mother telling me that when she graduated as the valedictorian of her high school and as an Ontario scholar that her overall academic average was around an 80%. When I graduated high school a 90% overall average was enough to get you into any university program and get many offers of scholarship. Today, students compete to get averages between 97% and 99% in order to get into the same programs and be offered similar scholarships.
I don’t believe that students today are smarter than students were in previous generations, and many university programs seem to agree. According to a report by the CBC, the University of Waterloo’s engineering program, for instance, downgrades marks from a number of Ontario high schools whose students routinely perform poorly in their first year. As of September 2018, there were no less than 74 Ontario high schools on their list.
What I would suggest is happening is that the meaning of grades has changed over time. In order to earn an 80% in my mother’s generation, a student had to work very hard and be bright while today a student with similar talents and work ethic may achieve in the upper 90s. Changing the standards to achieve a higher mark is likely subconsciously done to help students in their post secondary studies. Unfortunately, in the long run this does not help them get into the programs they want. Every other student in the province will experience similar grading standards as all schools try to give their students fair evaluations which allow an equal comparison to their peers from other schools who are applying to the same programs.
From a mathematical perspective this grade inflation can be seen as innocuous since ultimately the competition between students is still fair. However, I believe this process causes serious psychological harm. The message that a student from my mother’s generation received was that they could be bright and talented and achieve an 80%. That means that it was OK to get 20% wrong. Once you consider the fact that it is an 80% average it really means that is was OK every now and again to get a mark below a 70%. A student at that time could have self confidence and a strong sense of personal success while also being far from perfect. Unfortunately, today students learn that anything less than perfection is a problem. They aren’t allowed to make any mistakes in their quest to achieve academic and career success. This pressure is psychologically damaging and often creates a negative sense of self in a student who from an objective outside perspective is both talented and motivated.
For the time being, we are faced with this academic reality. In addition to reinforcing work ethic, we need to work hard to help our children learn is that it is OK to make mistakes. Chazal teach us that “אין הביישן למד,” a person who is too embarrassed to make a mistake is unable to learn. Mistakes are a normal and essential part of the learning process. Perfection is not an achievable human goal as is clearly demonstrated by the fact that no less than משה רבינו, is recorded as being imperfect. We need to strive to improve and get closer to perfection while accepting the fact that we often get things wrong and can learn from our mistakes.
