In India, every hour a student commits suicide. The devastating picture of academic pressure and the rat-race for marks takes the lives of innocent students, leaving families hopeless. Amongst the high expectations of grades, scores and marks, we often forget’ the actual aim of imparting education to our young generations. As more and more students need a respite from the issues of academic stress, it is important to change our approach of teaching for marks.
Thankfully, with the growing popularity of online learning platforms, we can bring down the academic stress of students and aim at teaching for excellence.
Why and how should we aim at teaching for excellence and not marks?
- The rat-race of marks reduces the chances of developing divergent thinking:
Academic stress can hamper a student’s mental and physical health, leaving them demotivated and unproductive. While an academic record is important in life, it should not be considered the only benchmark to prove one’s calibre. By aiming at excellence and not just marks, one can reach the pinnacle of success easily.
On the contrary, the race to score better keeps our students confined to a limited level of learning. Such students cram facts and end up scoring well, but what they miss out in this process is even more important than scores — the development of high-order thinking skills. Today, modern online education institutions offer a viable solution to this problem. A pioneer online school in India works towards the inculcation of new-age skills in students.
The academicians of these platforms aim at developing divergent thinking and a never-ending zeal to learn in students. This makes students capable of individuals and not just memorising experts.
- At the post-secondary level and job markets, skillsets matter more than marks:
Another fact that highlights the need for teaching for excellence is the prospect of an individual’s education. Again, a virtual classroom can help in a student’s enriched learning experience because at every workplace and higher education institution it is the skill that defines an individual and not just scores. So, we can easily understand that chasing the numeric values of grades and marks do not make our students secure in their career paths.
On the other hand, if we aim at sharpening their axe for prospects, we can serve the actual purpose of mentoring them for a great future.
Now that we know how the rat-race of marks can hamper our students, it’s time to discuss how to overcome the hazards of marks oriented education.
For the greater good of our students, we should aim at a more de-stressed school environment. One way of doing this is to embrace online education. Thankfully, in this digital age, an online school offers the blessing of online education. If a student enrols in a recognised online school in India, it is possible to overcome the voids of marks oriented schooling.
- Online schooling aims at achieving excellence and not just marks:
Online schools work on the lines of the universal goal of “quality learning”. This emphasis on quality education makes the process more student-centric and reduces the stress of scoring marks. When we teach students for excellence, great results simply follow. Virtual schooling is not just great to help students with their unique needs but also helps in attaining mastery over the subject matter.
- Mastery level learning helps in securing good marks:
An online school in India follows a structured and systematic approach for mastery level learning. In a virtual classroom, students can work in their self-paced schedules and cement their understanding of concepts. This helps them reach a level of excellence and improves their academic performance. Online school teachers follow the goals of mastery level learning and realise the broad educational goals of teaching for excellence.
Conclusion
As stakeholders, we must do away with unproductive teaching methodologies. To make this possible we should understand and promote the ideology of quality education aiming at excellence because chasing marks and bearing the brunt of a mindless rat race can do no good for our students. We must accept that it is high time we start living with this fact.
Thankfully, online learning platforms are here with a respite for students, helping them learn for excellence and driving the actual motive of education — lifelong learning.
On this note, I sum up my thoughts with a beautiful quote by Maxime Lagace: “A dull mind gets bored easily. A curious mind expands forever.”
So let’s make sure we teach for excellence, not marks.