What Would The Ancients Think?

Somewhere along the way, I think we got off track in our education system.  Somewhere along the way we stopped caring about how much we learn in a class and began worrying only about what grade we earn.  I realize that grades are intended to be a reflection of how much you have learned, but our execution of this is askew.  I, myself, have been guilty of merely regurgitating information for a test or quiz multiple times without thinking anything of it.  We tend to think, "I don't like this subject. I'm never going to use it again. Who cares?" Whatever happened to being an all around well educated person, a positive contribution to society.  I see now that many of the classes that I received a lower grade in are the ones that struggled in the most, therefore I worked harder.  Because I worked harder, I retained more information.  I am not saying that we should strive to make lower grades, but I am saying that we should challenge ourselves more.  I think our educational system would be much more effective if students received slightly lower grades because they were being challenged more. If we were required to take the hardest course we were capable of taking, we would all have lower GPAs, sure, but we would be much more educated human beings.  I am not saying that making good grades is a bad thing.  I am merely proposing the idea that perhaps it has been made all that is important to students.

 Many students, myself included, never studied a day in their life before 11th grade, or 12th grade, or college even.  This is because we were never challenged in their younger years.  Because we were never challenged in our younger years, we made 100s without trying.  We learned nothing, yet were rewarded for scholarship.  This is where our idea of grades mattering more than content came from.  I cannot help but wonder what the ancient scholars, such as Aristotle or Socrates would think of our number obsession, and our apathetic view of actually retaining some knowledge. But, this all in the name of academia, of course, so that we can achieve a higher score on a test, so that we will not be requited to take an exam, so that said exam would not hurt our precious averages and prevent us from getting accepted to some prestigious institution of higher learning, where we plan to do that thing of which we have forgotten the importance...oh what's it called...learn?