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Passing Does Not Mean Learning

13.1.2015

Out of the 16 cousins in my large and dysfunctional family, I am the only one who went to University. It is now water under the bridge, but you cannot imagine what the pressure was like at the time: the crossbred honor of the Tallada Martínez family depended entirely on my supposed ability to obtain the precious bachelor’s degree.

Learning - understood as a driving force behind an individual’s autonomy - is more important than the grade on the student’s report So while the other sprogs of the clan were choosing the most diverse ways to earn a living (from ethnic music to interior refurbishment, from driving heavy load lorries to burlesque shows) this humble servant was shedding sweat, blood and tears over books, exams and classes.

It was not easy, although not for the reasons often put forward. I have always enjoyed studying, a terrible obsession of mine, but I also tend to be a bit of a rebel and to challenge authority when it is exerted by someone who does not merit it or does not have the competence to do so, especially when it is about issues that concern or interest me. And there was the problem: throughout my degree I did not have any trouble passing the exams in the most boring subjects or those taught by the dullest teachers, but I used to struggle with the subjects that really fascinated me because of my stubborn insistence on formulating my own opinions as opposed to blindly following those expressed by the run-of-the-mill professor. One of the professors, a particularly strict one, decided he would not pass me until I showed I was in agreement with his doctrine. He succeeded at the third attempt. My backing down had a lot to do with my mother’s burning desire to show off in front of her sisters in law.

It was during those University years when I learnt that passing did not mean learning. Passing an exam was an administrative formality that had more to do with the ingenuity of a well versed student and the teacher-student tortuous power relations than with knowledge itself. To learn is a process that is fascinating, complex, non-lineal and reiterative that makes you grow, sometimes painfully, as a person and a professional.

That experience left an indelible mark on me. Since becoming first a teacher and then the academic coordinator of ISGlobal’s Master of Global Health, I have tried to get everyone, students and colleagues alike, into thinking that learning - understood as a driving force behind an individual’s autonomy -  is more important than the grade on the student’s report. This is not to say that grades are not important, but they have to be seen for what they are: a one-time reflection of the rules that govern our competitive world.