The False Idol of Good Grades

Or, The Gulf Between Today's Heroes and Today's Valedictorians

I went to school with a hero. I didn’t know it at the time; nobody did. He was a nice guy, but certainly didn’t stand out. Never excelled academically, wasn’t a sports star – wasn’t the class clown or the bully, either. Just seemed pretty, well, regular. I couldn’t tell you his grades with confidence, but he was my classmate for a good decade or so and my impression is he was a hardworking though not gifted student who was somewhere in the middle of the class. He didn’t win any medals at graduation. Then, three years after high school graduation, he ran into a burning building.

His neighbor’s house caught fire in the middle of the night. He was awakened by desperate knocking; his panicked neighbor explained that his grandmother was still inside the burning house. Alexander did not hesitate: he ran inside, fought through the smoke, and, after being unable to convince the old lady to come out with him, carried her to safety on his shoulders. This time, he did get a medal. True story.

I suppose it would be easy for me to burst with pride for the school that molded such heroes as he and I. Except… that would be a lie. I’m no hero, and I don’t think our school had much to do with his actions. Unlike him, I did get good grades and prizes at graduation – and I ain’t running into any burning buildings, thank you very much. Neither are the other classmates who made perennial appearances on the honor roll. At our school, you didn’t have to be brave or selfless to get straight As – in fact, you could be the bravest, most selfless boy in the neighborhood and it wouldn’t have raised your GPA one bit. Mostly to get As you just had to do your homework and memorize whatever the teacher said. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with writing response papers and memorizing formulas, but don’t call it courage.

We all know that school, as it currently exists, has some big problems. As Professor Esolen likes to say, there’s only two things wrong with school today: what it doesn’t teach and what it does. Me, I think the professor is an optimist! Pretend all traces of trans madness, race hatred, and other forms of wokeness are expunged from curricula, to be replaced by quality literature and instruction. Yes, of course this would be an improvement and a big one at that. Yet what I am trying to get at is that even in such a world, there remains something amiss about the way schools operate. Put aside grooming and CRT. What is the fundamental problem with modern school? Well, it lies somewhere in the gap between writing a five paragraph essay about fire safety and actually rushing into a burning building.

This is not a new problem. You don’t have to be a Civil War buff to have heard the name of one of the worst students ever to set foot at West Point: Stonewall Jackson, perhaps America’s greatest-ever general. Another middling West Point student you may have heard of: Ulysses S. Grant. On the other hand, Jackson’s polar opposite, the greatest student in his or any class at West Point, a true academic superstar, the future Commander of the Union Army… was George McClellan, famously one of the nation’s all time worst battlefield generals. Had there never been a war, Jackson and Grant would have languished in pitiable obscurity, while McLellan would have gone to his grave with the most sterling reputation imaginable and possibly a term or two as President to boot. What is the fundamental problem with modern school? Well, it lies somewhere in the gap between being America’s greatest peacetime general and actually winning a single battle.  

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying to ditch grades altogether. I am saying, tread carefully. Tread especially carefully before drugging a child based on a report card (which, in the name of ADHD, my fellow pediatricians do every single day). My pastor recently gave a fantastic sermon about wisdom. One of his points, citing Augustine, was about rightly ordered loves. Your love for your children, or your dog, or whatever else, may be a good thing, but only when it is ordered appropriately – if you love your dog more than your baby, or your car more than your spouse, that’s gonna be a problem. This stems from the very first Commandment – to have no other gods before God. This biblical wisdom applies just as much to your child’s education as to any other aspect of life. Report cards may be good, when you approach them in a properly ordered fashion – but if you make a god out of them, if you make pursuit of good grades the prime purpose of school, over formation of Godly character, you are in for a nasty education indeed.

Is another way possible? Very much so. You may remember I am a fan of the wonderful popular historian Tom Holland. He and fellow historian Dominic Sandbrook host a very entertaining and informative podcast, The Rest is History. This month, they devoted a two-part episode to the history of England’s boarding schools (with shameless tie-ins to Harry Potter to get your attention). As they point out, the most influential boarding school book ever written was Tom Brown’s Schooldays. The book singlehandedly reshaped Victorian education – and, as Britain was at the height of its imperial influence, that means it defined education around the globe. Indeed, the school that the heroic Alex and I attended was founded over a century ago by disciples of that educational project. Yes, just like Harry Potter, I went to a school with four houses and a house cup and prefects and the lot (of course I was a prefect myself, what do you expect?). By the time Alex and I attended, however, the original Christianizing mission was long gone, replaced by modern academic college prep type material. It is impossible to believe now, but as late as the 1950s, the school headmaster was famous for the Bible class he taught in his thick Scottish accent. Such were the days…

Tom Brown’s Schooldays may be fiction, but it featured a very real life hero, the headmaster of Rugby School, Thomas Arnold. Listen to the podcasts to learn more about his life and profound influence, but here’s a characteristic quotation of his:

If one might wish for impossibilities, I might then wish that my children might be well versed in physical science, but in due subordination to the fulness and freshness of their knowledge on moral subjects. ... [R]ather than have it the principal thing in my son's mind, I would gladly have him think that the sun went round the earth, and that the stars were so many spangles set in the bright blue firmament. Surely the one thing needful for a Christian and an Englishman to study is Christian and moral and political philosophy.

As a later historian would write of Dr. Arnold:

It followed that the first purpose of education was to inculcate Christian morality. "It is not necessary", he wrote, "that this should be a school of three hundred, or one hundred, or fifty boys; but it is necessary that it should be a school of Christian gentlemen."

Christian morality was thus very much more important than, for example, scientific knowledge... Arnold went so far as to resign from the governing body of the new London University because religion was not to be a compulsory examination subject: "... An University that conceived of education as not involving in it principles of moral truths would be an evil."

Next time your child’s teacher, or doctor, pressures you to put him on drugs to help turn that B into an A, think of my heroic schoolmate and ask, “Will this medicine help my kid run into a burning building?” If they look befuddled and answer something like, “Um, no, it’s to help him get better grades,” well, maybe it’s time to let them borrow your copy of Augustine’s Confessions, or Tom Brown’s Schooldays. Trust me, they won’t find either one in the school library.

Thank you for reading and have a great, pop-quiz-free rest of your week!