Blogs

Do you want grades, or an education?

Examinations & Qualifications
Everyone is demanding grades – from politicians to business leaders and of course parents – and most schools are delivering, but is this at the expense of education? Hilary Moriarty asks the question.

I went through school hating maths with a passion. 

This was engendered by one maths teacher for three years who regularly threw chalk, board dusters and insults if you didn’t get it first time, followed by a second – the head of maths, no less – who would write complicated formulae on the board and turn to the class with: “You girls won’t get this – Peter Hughes, have you got the answer?”

And Peter (name not changed) who went on, I believe, to become an actuary, always had the answer. He and the teacher shared the same lofty platform above a sea of ignorance in the rest of the class.

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