I have always enjoyed school. There have been many teachers and professors that have made a lasting impact on my life. I still can recall teachers I had ten plus years ago in elementary school that conditioned my young mind to love learning and get addicted to challenges. Middle school teachers are prime examples that not all superheroes wear capes because they are teaching the preteen, know-it-all, hormonal human beings of the world. Even those tough souls got through to my thick head and encouraged me to chase my passion for learning. I was lucky enough to have incredible high school teachers. Each grade of my four years, I had a deeper than surface level connection with one of them. I discovered that physics is doable and can be understood, precalculus is actually kind of fun, and chemistry is even better when you have a teacher named "Mr. Moles." My major is nowhere near the sciences, but because of my teachers, I know I can anything I put my mind to. However, now that I am in college, I see a flaw in the education system.

Numbers and letters given to represent your mental range is one the reasons that people do not feel like they are enough. Because you can work to your maximum capacity and you may still not get an A. Or if you get an A in all classes except for one, then you do not get that 4.0 It is a losing battle and you will come up short no matter the outcome. My mom and dad always told me that the learning is the most important part of school. Like how the grade is the measure of learning, but the grades do not reflect the intelligence. Nor do they reflect the art of balancing the external pressures of school and the academic rigor. I can read people like books and I can write articles from ideas that spew out of my head. I am pretty sure I could entertain a brick wall and I could become best friends with a stranger in five minutes, but we do not get a grade for our ability to have human connection. Because it cannot be taught within four walls.

I am not making a point to say that people should not go to school or that grades should not be given, I am suggesting that there should be a different measure of success than a simple figure. Because I have felt like the academic grading scale has failed me and others around me, I hope one day that intelligence and ability cannot be assigned to a number or letter.