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The Grades Were Lies

Let me tell you something that no teacher ever told you, that no principal ever admitted, that no guidance counselor with their manila folders and their "realistic expectations" ever had the decency to say: *The grades were lies.* Not mistakes. Not approximations. Not "areas for improvement." Lies. Exposed and deliberate and violent lies told to children by a system that needed failures the way a factory needs raw material, the way a war needs bodies, the way a fraud needs silence. --- II. You sat in that classroom— maybe you were seven, maybe you were twelve, maybe you were seventeen and already broken— and they handed you a paper with a letter on it, or a number, or a percentage calculated to the decimal point as if your mind could be measured like lumber, like livestock, like oil in a barrel— and that letter said: You are not enough. And you believed them. *Why wouldn't you believe them?* They were adults. They had degrees. They had authority. They spoke with certainty about things you didn't understand, and when you failed to understand they didn't say "I failed to teach you"— they said "You failed to learn." They put the failure on YOU. A child. They put the weight of their incompetence on your shoulders and called it your deficit, your lack, your limitation, your learning disability, your attitude problem, your lack of application, your failure to meet expectations— *THEIR expectations.* *THEIR timeline.* *THEIR curriculum.* *THEIR tests designed to produce* *exactly the distribution of results* *they needed to produce.* --- III. Let me tell you how this works because no one ever explained it, because the ones who know don't want you to know: A school is measured by its grades. Too many A's? Grade inflation. Lose funding. Too many F's? Failing school. Lose funding. So what do they need? They need a *curve*. They need a bell. They need most students in the middle and some at the top *and some at the bottom.* Read that again. *They need some at the bottom.* The lie does not work without failures. Your failure was not an accident. Your failure was a *requirement*. Someone had to be the bottom of the curve. Someone had to be the example. Someone had to be the cautionary tale they ... ---- snip ---- (Sorry, 5,000 letter limit in summaries see catpea.com or visit https://github.com/catpea/ for source-code) ---- snip ---- ...d most people are never given that chance. Most people are sorted before they can speak, tracked before they can choose, labeled before they understand that labels are removable, that tracks can be jumped, that the sorting was arbitrary and cruel and wrong. But you understand now. The ones who did this to you will never admit what they did and you cannot wait for an apology that will never come. You have to save yourself. And you can. And you must. Because this is where it ends or this is where it begins— with you, reading this, deciding whether to believe the grades or to believe the fire that still burns somewhere beneath the ash they tried to bury you under. --- XV. Believe the fire. The grades were lies and the tests were traps and the whole machinery of measurement was designed by people who needed you to fail so they could feel like they succeeded. I believe genius is not rare. I believe it is stolen. I believe it was stolen from you. And I believe you can take it back. You take it back by learning. By growing. By becoming. On your own terms. At your own pace. In your own direction. You take it back by refusing— finally, completely, permanently refusing— to believe that you are what they said you were. You are not a grade. You are not a percentile. You are not a label in a file You are a human being with an infinite capacity for understanding, for growth, for greatness— and today is the day you start to prove it to the only person who matters: yourself. --- XVI. Now go. Not tomorrow. Not when you're ready. Not when you have time. Now. Find something you want to understand. Something you gave up on. Something they told you you weren't smart enough to learn. And learn it. Slowly. Patiently. Without grades, without tests, without anyone measuring whether you're doing it right. Build the palace in your mind. Brick by brick. Book by book. Question by question. And when the old voice comes back— the voice that says "you can't," the voice that sounds like every teacher who couldn't be bothered to teach you— tell it: **"The grades were lies. I am not what you said I was. I never was. And I am done believing you."** Then keep building. The palace has been waiting for you your whole life. It's time to move in. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Audio and full text version is available advertisement free at: https://catpea.com or visit https://github.com/catpea/ for source-code The Grades Were Lies Tuesday • February 3rd 2026 • 3:39:46 pm