{"id":10942,"date":"2019-10-10T09:14:19","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T09:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sisschools.org\/sis-myanmar\/?p=10942"},"modified":"2025-10-21T15:31:29","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T09:01:29","slug":"balancing-old-and-new-ideas-on-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sisschools.org\/sis-myanmar\/blog\/balancing-old-and-new-ideas-on-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Past Straight A’s: Balancing Old And New Ideas on Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Alvin Hew<\/span>
\nSIS Group of Schools, Board Director<\/span><\/p>\n

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As parents and teachers we sometimes become overly focused on the immediately tangible: the test scores, the grades and the rankings. But it has never been more important, in the face of overwhelming research, to consider the importance and development of social, emotional, relationship and leadership skills, and to have the tools that lead to an individual\u2019s resilience. Top test scores at the expense of developing these critical skills at any age whether in K-12 school or university is actually a negative.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Asia there seem to be even more hurdles in evolving this mindset. Traditional Asian parents can be forgiven for adopting the perspective that worked for them or their own parents: namely, get perfect scores on your examinations and success is sure to follow. But this is a game plan for an industrialised period that is long gone – the game has most certainly changed. We are now in the midst of the world\u2019s <\/span>4th Industrial Revolution<\/span><\/a>, and we need to evolve this perspective because the jobs of tomorrow will not hold repetitive, standardised challenges – they will require an individual to be able to deal with and adapt to new challenges daily, many that do not even exist today. This requires more than rote memorisation of knowledge, it requires a sense of curiosity and inquiry, ability to build strong relationships and work with others, and establishing trust and reputation required of high functioning teams. <\/span><\/p>\n

Adam Grant<\/span><\/a> is an organizational psychologist at t<\/span>he Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania as well as an opinion writer for the New York Times. <\/span>In <\/span>this week\u2019s opinion piece<\/span><\/a> in the Times, Adam touches on a fact that many successful people in the business world already know from the experience of recruiting – perfect grades <\/span>do not<\/span><\/i> equal automatic career success.<\/span><\/p>\n

The opposite can actually be true.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn a 2003 <\/span>study<\/span><\/a> of over 500 job postings, nearly 15 percent of recruiters actively selected against students with high G.P.A.s (perhaps questioning their priorities and life skills), while more than 40 percent put no weight on grades in initial screening.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Mr. Grant points out, those of us that have been through many cycles of recruitment for business know that \u201cGPA\u201d is rarely an inflection point on a CV or job interview. In fact, academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence. Employers are not actively seeking those people with the highest grades. Rather, they are forming impressions from stories the candidate tells them about dealing with adversity: <\/span><\/p>\n