Is Grade so important to me?

I had a 'strange' encounter yesterday.

Someone asked me, is the grade really important to me?

in my heart I was answering, of course grade is important to me. But it is important not only to me, but also to everyone else. Why? whether I can continue study in SBC or not, it all depending on the grade. whether I can have a further study later, it all depending on the grade. So, I can answer that grade is important to me.

But why did the person ask me that question?

you see, there was once in the class, that I reminded the teacher, that a vocab is not part of the lesson that we were ought to memorize. That vocab will cost us 4 mark. And I wasn't really protesting, I was saying "can you tell us this word please?" "why?" "because this is not in the vocab, and hence we do not know"

there was the other time, when one of my quiz paper was not marked accordingly. One of the question which I rightly answered was left blank. That is another 4 mark question. So I showed the paper to the teacher in the class, by bringing the quiz paper to him.

there was this recent time, when the teacher did specifically mention that we do not need to memorize some tables (8 tables of 20 words) for the quiz, but it came out. And there were 40 marks for the tables that we were asked to recognize, not memorize. Everyone in the class were very depressed because we cannot do it. even if we manage to get full mark for the rest, it will still be 60 only. So after some discussion, it was decided that I will talk to the teacher in private.

Well, I tried. I stopped him outside the class. I said we need to discuss about the quiz. He did not stop and continue to walk in to the class. And hence, my 'feedback' was carried out in the class. At the end of the day, the teacher said that he will disregard the 40 marks.

there is this other time, when our group paper was given only 74 marks, which is a fail for our standard ( we need to get at least 80!). The reason is that our paper is not the genre that we are used to write, compared to the other groups. I did not want to raise this in the class. I wanted to do it in private. But someone else bring out the issue about our group's paper, and so I have to express my feeling about the paper, or else that someone will be ridiculed.

So, is the grade really important to me? yes. but I wouldn't fight for it if it is my own fault. For all the above, the problem lies not on me, but on the teacher's carelessness in marking, in choosing the questions for the quiz. Should I not ask for a correction if something is not done properly? If I ask for correction does that mean that I am asking for too much? If I am being treated unfairly, should I just accept it?

Lastly, I just want to say that if I am a teacher, and I am picking on the smallest mistake done by the student and deduct their marks, then I'd better be serious in preparing my notes and quiz and make sure that I don't make the same mistakes done by the students. For if I want to be strict to the student, then I'd better be stricter to myself.

Yes, grade is important to me. you ask everyone else in the school. all the faculty and students. and you will probably get the same answer. GRADE is important