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Whenever the exam season – or the release of grades – rolls around the corner, constant reminders regarding the fatally limiting nature of academic results begin to surface exponentially.

You are more than the sum of your grades.

There are many things in life that are worth more than your test score.

Grades are important – but what matters more is character.

Indeed, as hackneyed as these phrases may sound, they do carry a certain degree of truth. But they ought not become excuses for students to neglect the significance of exams or to invest less effort in their studies.

After this morning's devotion and an insightful conversation with a friend, it occurred to me that perhaps the reason behind the perpetual need to downplay the importance of academic scores in results-oriented, grades-obsessed Singapore is our misplacement of its actual value. Hyper-focused on the slant that "perfect scores" indicate intellectual aptitude, superior capability, and boundless potential, the nature of this system often fails spotlight other innate virtues that are indirectly revealed.

On the surface, grades are merely quasi-accurate quantifiable means to calibrate potential. However, the upward chase for perfection by these numerical standards do, in fact, unleash and nurture a wider host of positive attributes as well.

For one, the seeds of Resilience are wordlessly planted in the student who decides to give Fitzgerald yet another shot, despite having multiple commentaries deemed inadequate and hurled back with "lacks analysis", "lots of generalization" and "poor expression" stabbed all over them in red. A student's ability to see the red-inked comments as fuel to the Green Light burning at the end of a successful education will spur them forward; a grade ought to do nothing more than drive you onward to a bright "orgastic future". 

Likewise, beyond backbreaking athletics and practice-makes-perfect drills, there is no better way to cultivate iron Discipline than through sitting one's 'never-attaining-more-than-20%-on-a-maths-paper' self down, and confronting the sums that don't add up and the numbers that remain complex. The development of a functioning internal locus of control begins when the coordinates of 'what you detest doing' forms a straight line with 'what you have to do'. 

And above all, in the process of pursuing a good grade, the Courage garnered to approach and grapple with the unknown may end up forming the core of a positive attitude that allows for an unassailable start in the real world. After all, great learners are as frightened of new challenges as others. But the tenacity to learn could perhaps be the simple differentiating factor between the student who struggles to overcome their initial lack of understanding of macroeconomic goals, and the student who grows up to contribute to soaring global Unemployment. 

It is easy to argue that the qualities of resilience, discipline, courage and more can be attained as effectively through other activities; or even through academics SANS an uncompromising grading curve. But if you can't change it, why not embrace it? What more, the acquisition of these skills and virtues under the pressure of grades – ironically – provides the very tools that propels one to success! Hence, it is probably more productive to perceive test scores as a tangible representations of dynamic goals, or even new levels of potential to unleash. Therein, the pressure from the barometer of academic achievement itself is converted to a source of motivation instead. 

Ultimately, grades will always remain as a bunch of numbers (eventually forgotten). The greatest failure, hence, lies not in the rigidity and supposed blindness of this system that demarcates success based on a stipulated numerical boundary. The failure lies within one's inability to see beyond the preoccupation with those pathetic digits that hold no value more than what is self-prescribed. 

Whenever the exam season – or the release of grades – rolls around the corner, constant reminders regarding the fatally limiting nature of academic results begin to surface exponentially.

You are more than the sum of your grades.

There are many things in life that are worth more than your test score.

Grades are important – but what matters more is character.

Indeed, as hackneyed as these phrases may sound, they do carry a certain degree of truth. But they ought not become excuses for students to neglect the significance of exams or to invest less effort in their studies.

After this morning's devotion and an insightful conversation with a friend, it occurred to me that perhaps the reason behind the perpetual need to downplay the importance of academic scores in results-oriented, grades-obsessed Singapore is our misplacement of its actual value. Hyper-focused on the slant that "perfect scores" indicate intellectual aptitude, superior capability, and boundless potential, the nature of this system often fails spotlight other innate virtues that are indirectly revealed.

On the surface, grades are merely quasi-accurate quantifiable means to calibrate potential. However, the upward chase for perfection by these numerical standards do, in fact, unleash and nurture a wider host of positive attributes as well.

For one, the seeds of Resilience are wordlessly planted in the student who decides to give Fitzgerald yet another shot, despite having multiple commentaries deemed inadequate and hurled back with "lacks analysis", "lots of generalization" and "poor expression" stabbed all over them in red. A student's ability to see the red-inked comments as fuel to the Green Light burning at the end of a successful education will spur them forward; a grade ought to do nothing more than drive you onward to a bright "orgastic future". 

Likewise, beyond backbreaking athletics and practice-makes-perfect drills, there is no better way to cultivate iron Discipline than through sitting one's 'never-attaining-more-than-20%-on-a-maths-paper' self down, and confronting the sums that don't add up and the numbers that remain complex. The development of a functioning internal locus of control begins when the coordinates of 'what you detest doing' forms a straight line with 'what you have to do'. 

And above all, in the process of pursuing a good grade, the Courage garnered to approach and grapple with the unknown may end up forming the core of a positive attitude that allows for an unassailable start in the real world. After all, great learners are as frightened of new challenges as others. But the tenacity to learn could perhaps be the simple differentiating factor between the student who struggles to overcome their initial lack of understanding of macroeconomic goals, and the student who grows up to contribute to soaring global Unemployment. 

It is easy to argue that the qualities of resilience, discipline, courage and more can be attained as effectively through other activities; or even through academics SANS an uncompromising grading curve. But if you can't change it, why not embrace it? What more, the acquisition of these skills and virtues under the pressure of grades – ironically – provides the very tools that propels one to success! Hence, it is probably more productive to perceive test scores as a tangible representations of dynamic goals, or even new levels of potential to unleash. Therein, the pressure from the barometer of academic achievement itself is converted to a source of motivation instead. 

Ultimately, grades will always remain as a bunch of numbers (eventually forgotten). The greatest failure, hence, lies not in the rigidity and supposed blindness of this system that demarcates success based on a stipulated numerical boundary. The failure lies within one's inability to see beyond the preoccupation with those pathetic digits that hold no value more than what is self-prescribed.