A student’s value does not lie in his or her grades
Reporting about the SGA, not a record of it: The Johns Hopkins News-Letter published this and the SGA did not write it, file it, or approve it. The archive holds it because the article itself uses the phrase “sga”.
Summary
- This Johns Hopkins News-Letter article discusses student pressure, health and the author’s view that grades should not determine a student’s value.
- The article reports that The Black and Blue Jay published a fake ranking about “soul-crushing” universities and that Jason Plush later stepped down as SGA executive president, citing his workload and its effect on his health.
- The paper reported that students continued pulling all-nighters, skipping meals and worrying about highly selective programmes despite the health risks.
- The article says studies link sleep deprivation to poorer memory, decision-making and mental health, and that an all-nighter can reduce the chance of earning a good grade.
- The reporter writes that judging achievement through academic standards can reinforce racist, sexist and ableist ideas, quoting Arash Daneshzadeh: “Education, as an epicenter to society’s ecological nervous system, is the hub that sends and receives its messages from powers that reinforce and aim to dispatch these [white-supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal] hierarchies.”
- The article adds that students should question why they risk their health for grades and says, “Change is incremental, but hopefully we can shift into a healthier environment.”