Moving To High School

I’ve mostly gotten used to students stressing over “maxing out” because the school and classes I’m in are so competitive, it’s difficult to maintain the mindset that education isn’t just about grades, rather the learning, when I seem to be the only one with that perspective. As a student in the rigorous IB program, I often feel inferior academically to those around me because my grades haven’t always been consistently high like my classmates. Despite being a very social and vocal person, whenever the subject of careers, college, GPA, success/failure, etc. comes up, I tend to shy away from the discussion because I fear that I’ll come across as overconfident and as if I’m trying to distinguish myself as superior to others. To clarify, I firmly
It wasn’t until I moved to public school in 4th grade that I really began to feel the pressure to receive straight A’s and perform exceptionally on standardized tests. As a kid who’d never really struggled to maintain good grades, it was extremely difficult when I got to high school, even in 8th grade, and realized that I wasn’t being graded on how well I’d learned and the effort I put in, but by how well I performed on tests and under pressure.
Flash forward to my high school career when GPA and grades became the sole drive for students to do well in classes and actually pay somewhat attention or participate; I found myself in a constant state of disbelief and fear. My peers all had the same attitude towards education and were so concerned with getting high grades that they never really noticed that I saw things differently and so I’d often be dismissed. I vividly remember the looks on everyone’s face when a random conversation with Mr. Fields revealed that, he too, had a different perspective on education. “ I hate how my grades in this class make it seem like I’m not good at Geometry because I love it and actually understand stuff.” “Jessica, are you
Now if you’re failing, that’s different because it means you’re not really trying or learning,” “But I AM learning,” I interrupt. “I know, which is why I’m not too concerned with your grades. Grades might have some importance for your GPA and college, but none of that matters if you aren’t learning anything.”
I’d always struggled to understand how learning didn’t always equal good grades, so hearing a teacher tell me that grades weren’t everything reinforced my attitude. He was one of few to notice something that separated me from most; something I wasn’t used to, but hoped would become more common.
Although more people seem to notice this once they get to know me, the majority still assume I’m amongst the masses. It may seem like something very trivial, but I truly feel it’s important because that attitude and mindset is one of my most pervasive characterizations regarding how I live and see the world. By this going unnoticed, I feel it’s hard for people to really get a sense of what kind of person I am and why I live and think the way I do, so it’s only natural to want others to be more exposed to something I regard so