The Importance of Report Cards in School

rnI still remember how my friends and parents used to hug me for the colorful marks on my report card when I was in Primary School. My parents must have expected me to have become a scientist or something in the future. But who knew my parents’ dreams would shatter soon. I was getting older and my marks in the report card were degrading. And, slowly it became a fearful matter to show my report card to my parents. I even once dumped my class IX report card into the dustbin because of my poor marks in Math. I knew I would get a thrashing from my parents if they saw my performance for the entire year in that card. But now, it makes me worried to think what I would do if my children did the same with their report cards. But at the same time I’m also grateful to the schools for the change that they have undergone in designing the style of report cards. Teachers these days put their remarks on the report cards which help the parent’s judge how their child is performing in school. This way, children cannot hide anything from the parents even if they want to. There are Schools which send the report cards to the parents online. This in a way helps children losing their report cards which they often do while coming back from school intentionally or unintentionally. But a majority of Schools still follow the traditional way of handing over their report cards to the children so that they can in turn give it to their parents. This was quite unlike my School, where it didn’t matter whether the students had got the signatures of their parents or not on the report cards. In comparison to my alma mater, I find the Schools of both my children really good because whenever I have any queries regarding the progress of my children, I get a satisfactory reply from the school authorities. rnI somehow disagree with the concept of sending report cards online. I’m sure; people will wonder why I’m condemning this new concept. Well, online report cards do not really contain the descriptions that let parents know about the progress of their children in the schools. Although, with a huge number of students in the School, teachers hardly get time to make any comment in the report cards of the students and they don’t even find it necessary too. Online report cards are also not safe as technical errors may occur any time which can delay the process Schools which follow the traditional way of sending the report cards to the parents are good in a way that they have comments about the children’s progress on the cards and it is also mandatory to get the signatures of the parents on the report cards. Handing over report cards to the children help them become responsible individuals capable of taking care of their belongings properly. Also report cards should be kept personal as slight fluctuations in the marks may create a negative effect in the child’s psychology.Keeping aside everything, I want my children to be honest and not do the same with their report cards that I did back in my School years.