When you’re in the thick of exams at school, it can be hard to keep an eye on the bigger picture – and that goes for parents as well as kids.
As a society, we place a lot of pressure on kids to get good grades, and on the idea that grades are the only way to prove or assess a person’s intelligence.
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This, despite the fact that science has said over and over again that’s not true. Humans are different, our brains are different, the way we learn and process things are different, and we all have entire lives after we exit school – and one principal penned a letter to his students’ parents to reiterate those facts during exam season.
Bored Panda reports that Principal Zubair Ahmed Khan of the International Indian School in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, wrote the following letter to the families at his school:
Please do recognize, amongst the students who will be sitting for the exams, there is an artist, who doesn’t need to understand Math.
There is an entrepreneur, who doesn’t care about History or English literature.
There is a musician, whose Chemistry marks won’t matter.
There’s an athlete, whose physical fitness is more important than Physics.
He goes on to urge parents to worry less about the scores and to not “take away the self-confidence and honor” of children who don’t live up to expectations.
Even though some skeptics on Reddit point out that a principal, whose school’s funding is often tied to test scores, wouldn’t be likely to write such a letter, most can agree that the message in the note shouldn’t be lost in the noise. Your kids don’t need more expectations than they put on themselves, and if they fail, they’re likely to be hard enough on themselves without your help. And yes, there’s a whole life after school, and ever since I graduated from college, not one single person has asked for my GPA.
I’m just saying. I wish I wouldn’t have spent so much time feeling like I wasn’t good enough – the give the same degree to everyone who passes, after all.