Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
I can still recall how sheepish I felt when in graduate school, I hit an O-chem exam out of the park (like, 96% raw score, which is insanely good for this class)... and my DH, our future best man, and a couple of our other close friends were all in this class together...

I wanted to sink into the floor when they found out that I was the one who had earned that 96. The mean was 68 on that exam. I felt AWFUL. blush And everyone involved was clearly an adult with little to prove at that point. We were all "smart like that."

This felt awful to me because I am not a competitive person, but some of the people who got low scores on that exam were/are. I made them feel bad, and I didn't even get any satisfaction from doing so since it didn't matter to me-- I'd have been thrilled if the low score had been my 96, truthfully.

Your responsibility was to learn the material, and do your best. You did that. You are not responsible for how other people feel... and you have no control over that, anyway. They do.

This behavior is the same as when we minimize our children's accomplishments in front of other parents, in order to try to protect their feelings.

- Often times it fails/backfires.
- It teaches the child to be ashamed of their abilities.
- It teaches the child that they're (wrongfully) responsible for the feelings of others.

If the schools are implementing a policy where grades are never disclosed, they can be unintentionally having the same effects as above.

Furthermore... how are the students supposed to know which of their peers to seek out for help if they don't know who the top students are?