Study: Adderall Doesn’t Help Kids Get Better Grades

Michael Tiemann February 15, 2014 11:24

Bribery helps kids get better grades. And threats of lawsuits.

David Megginson February 15, 2014 11:31

Grades are a side effect of education. As a goal in themselves, they’re worthless.

Michael K Johnson February 15, 2014 12:19

+David Megginson I was one of those tagged as academically underachieving in my youth. I survived. ☺

David Megginson February 15, 2014 12:58

What +Michael K Johnson said.

I almost failed grade-7 English (and did fail grade-7 French) - the teachers called my mother in and told her I simply had limited ability with language and literature. Actually, I was just a normal 10-11-year-old boy, bored out of my f**king mind stuck sitting at a desk all day having standard curriculum shoved down my throat.

In high school, fortunately, I discovered the joy of learning languages. A decade and a half after those bad grades, I had to restrain my mother from tracking those grade-7 teachers down and hitting them over their heads with my M.A. in medieval French lexicography, my Ph.D. in early medieval English philology, and my appointment as the only (at the time) under-30 full-time member of the English Department teaching faculty at the University of Ottawa.

So yes, parents, marks are bullshit. Just make sure your kids eventually find something they like learning, and they’ll figure out the rest.

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