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'What Straight-A Students Get Wrong' (nytimes.com)
From a story: Year after year, I watch in dismay as students obsess over getting straight A's. Some sacrifice their health; a few have even tried to sue their school after falling short. All have joined the cult of perfectionism out of a conviction that top marks are a ticket to elite graduate schools and lucrative job offers. I was one of them. I started college with the goal of graduating with a 4.0. It would be a reflection of my brainpower and willpower, revealing that I had the right stuff to succeed. But I was wrong.
The evidence is clear: Academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence. Across industries, research shows that the correlation between grades and job performance is modest in the first year after college and trivial within a handful of years. For example, at Google, once employees are two or three years out of college, their grades have no bearing on their performance.
Academic grades rarely assess qualities like creativity, leadership and teamwork skills, or social, emotional and political intelligence. Yes, straight-A students master cramming information and regurgitating it on exams. But career success is rarely about finding the right solution to a problem -- it's more about finding the right problem to solve.
The evidence is clear: Academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence. Across industries, research shows that the correlation between grades and job performance is modest in the first year after college and trivial within a handful of years. For example, at Google, once employees are two or three years out of college, their grades have no bearing on their performance.
Academic grades rarely assess qualities like creativity, leadership and teamwork skills, or social, emotional and political intelligence. Yes, straight-A students master cramming information and regurgitating it on exams. But career success is rarely about finding the right solution to a problem -- it's more about finding the right problem to solve.
... because everyone is taught the same shit.
That's OK for elementary, but by middle school (junior high), it's time to recognize people's passions and aptitudes and steer them down that or those lanes.
A friend with kids asked me if the kids should learn code. I said, absolutely not. Expose them to it and see if that take the bait. If not, try different bait.
As an analogy (not car), I told him that some parents force their kids to learn how to play the piano. Know how many good pianists there are? Not many.
Forcing kids to take code is a good way to piss them off and never forgive you for being stupid.
And if a kid like the violin, buy them one and the lessons to go with it.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.