What are Aptitude and Attitude?
Well, an Attitude is a set of beliefs and opinions about anything but technically an attitude object. However, an aptitude for something is the innate potential to acquire a skill with practice and development. There are numerous means for an individual to acquire knowledge. Although we are gaining knowledge every minute from various resources, school happens to be the primary and most common reservoir of knowledge. We attend school to learn new things, groom our personalities, refine our ideas, and prepare ourselves for all of life’s challenges.
The knowledge being imparted in schools advances with every grade, broadening our perspectives and bringing newer facts and figures to our notice. However, with knowledge come the assessments and marks. They happen to be part and parcel of this wonderful learning journey. From the time our students begin, they’re learning journey in school, the first and foremost thing they learn is that they will be assessed and marked on everything that goes on in the classroom and the mark-sheet will be sent home to the parents for signatures.
At home, they know their parents would evaluate their progress through their report cards. Thus begins a mad race to top in class every year. And in going to the students to forget the main purpose of attending school to acquire and cherish knowledge. It’s important that I gain good marks in exams otherwise students will be scolded by their parents.
The question that arises here is that are marks really a depiction of one’s potential and intelligence. If yes, then why has the world experienced examples of geniuses who seem to have contradicted this answer?
Take Albert Einstein’s example. He did not speak until he was four and could not write until he was seven. His teachers and parents thought he was mentally handicapped, slow, and anti-social. Thomas Edison was told by his teachers that he was too stupid. Winston Churchill struggled in school and failed 6th grade, Louis Pasteur was an ordinary student and ranked 15th out of 22 students in chemistry. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are both college dropouts. Marks are nothing but numbers. They do not necessarily test or represent a child’s intelligence.
They are obtained after answering a set of questions that prompt a child to recall what was taught in the class one or two months ago. How can you possibly label any child weak or brilliant only on the basis of exam questions? Potential is truly tested when one enters a practical life. Good report cards and degrees won’t help you then; your attitude is what will really matter then. However, we are compelled to appear for exams because parents and the educational systems require it.
If academician feels that marks do not judge a student’s capability and if students have taken exams more like a competition than as a part of the learning process, then why do parents, the third most important stakeholders of the learning triangle focus so much on report cards? All went in for a child who’s progress in life. This is precisely what most parents think when sending their children to school. And in the cut-throat competitive world of today, they’re thinking is justified too.
They are only securing their ward’s future, however, what they overlook is how much knowledge they’re ward has acquired throughout his school, college, and university days. Whether their child is applying that knowledge in everyday life, essentially the main purpose of attending institutions colleges and universities do not only to admit students with good marks they prefer will versed students who can be groomed into becoming confident articulate, and responsible citizens of this country also.
Students can become well versed only if they stop fretting over marks and develop an interest in what’s happening in the classroom. Reflect over it and then endeavor to implement it in their daily lives. Good grades are requisites. True, however, our entry tests are designed to solely test student knowledge, they aren’t a test of students’ memory but a test of what they’ve understood in school.
We need to prepare them for an extremely competitive job market around the world. Many employees have now shifted from CV-based recruitments to competency-based recruitments, which thoroughly evaluate each candidate’s skills, attitude attributes, and personal integrity. So what’s become of the precious degrees our students strive to achieve almost one-fourth of their lives?
Degrees help us in sieving the most appropriate candidates from the rest. They show that job seekers know what the books in their chosen field say. They help the candidates in winning an interview; it’s the candidate’s knowledge that counts. You can tell if he/she has been rote learning or understanding. If you have the knowledge, you’re assessment, exams and entry tests will go well. Expand your knowledge bank by reading more and experimenting and contributing to taking your country forward.
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