". . .for I know all sorts of things , and she ,oh, she knows such a very little"

"Of course she let him know that she is an all A student......". Thus concluded the final snippet of conversation upon which I was eavesdropping before I reluctently had to announce my presence by flushing the toilet.The conversation to which I had been privy (no pun intended) centered around a recounting by one mother to another of a school confrontation between her daughter and some sort of Authority Figure (whether teacher, administrator or custodian, it was unclear). I had only half listened to the details of the story, up that point. Having been a teacher myself, I had been in and out of a number of such conflicts; one in a hundred may actually be interesting. What was interesting was the way that the offending student used her GPA as a character reference, seemingly without regard for its relevance to the issue at hand. I don't know if the Authority Figure bought into this line of defense, but clearly Mom did. Just as clearly, Mom saw the good grades equal good character equation to be commonly accepted truth, because she offered it up so definitively in her daughter's defense. In retrospect, prehaps the toilet flush at the particular instant was not just a little symbolic.

I'll go on record right now to state that I had no first hand knowledge of the situation under discussion, nor did I know any of the folks involved. So I have no real insight about who did or did not misbehave, or why. The actual facts of the incident do not concern me so much as what seems to be the accepted practice of using academic achievement as a measure for nonacademic attributes; for example honesty, integrety, or general good citizinship. I frankly don't believe it is always up to that task. That's not to say that there is never a connection between good grades and good character. Frequently there is. But, even at the risk of being branded as the worst type of cynic, I cannot assume that the connection automatically exists.

Accomplishments, academic or otherwise, do tell a stories about those who have attained them. Most reliably, they tell stories of hard work combined with some degree of luck in being in the right place at the right time, or studying the right things in preparation for the test. Accomplishments also tell stories of diligence, and persistance in the face of hardship. These are worthy attributes, all. But they are not exclusive to the lives of those who are good role models. They can be part of the characters of wrong doers as well. When we try to extend the virtues necessary to achievement, too far beyond their baliwick, we stand in danger of becoming chumps.
In academics specifically, some theorists tell us that we can't even assume a connection between good grades and intelligence. If they're right, than high GPA's can't even be depended upon to uphold their traditional meanings, let alone the inferences. It has even been proposed that there are varities of intelligence besides academic. Is this to suggest that good grades have no relevance? Not a bit. I'm not devaluating the academically industrious in the least. I just think that we should not be naive about any young person's potential to make some bad decisions, in spite of grades earned.
Yet, too often we live under the influence of the GPA mystique. It comes as a shock, when good students pierce odd body parts, sport green hair, or more seriously get in trouble with the law. It's a shame, because the myth of the good grade, good character connection can prevent us from spotting signs of trouble in kids that we traditionally don't think of as being at risk. It has certainly led us into making unfair judgements about those less academically noteworthy. Most distressingly, though, it leaves gives young people self images that can be deceptively, and often cruelly one deminsional, concealing from them the reality that there is more to anyone than a set of grades.