A few days ago, the CBSE Class 10 results came out.
My phone rang. It was one of my students. I expected excitement — maybe even a little celebration. Instead, I heard a voice I barely recognized. Heavy. Deflated. Like someone who had already decided the story was over.
He said,”Ma’am I got only 78%. I studied so hard. I don’t know what I did wrong. I feel like I’ve ruined everything.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. Not because I didn’t know what to say — but because I wanted him to feel heard first. That voice on the other end wasn’t just disappointed. It was a 16-year-old who had been told, in a hundred subtle ways, that a number on a sheet of paper decides his worth.
And that broke my heart.
78% is not failure. Instead in my schooling days it was honoured as distinction and parents were proud of those marks ,so by any reasonable definition, it is a good score. But now, we have built a world where children who score 78% feel ashamed. Where anything below 90 feels like an apology. Where a teenager’s first instinct after months of hard work is to call someone and say “I’m sorry.”
What have we done? Are the marks that much important?
“The saddest part wasn’t his marks. It was that he had already started believing he wasn’t gain enough.”
I told him this; the most important thing you did today was pick up the phone. Not to report a score — but because you were hurting, and you reached out. That emotional intelligence? That courage? No board exam tests for it.
I told him about people who scored far less and built extraordinary lives. I told him about people who scored far more and never found peace. I told him that at 16, he had the courage to reach out someone whom he trusts.
Results depend on many factors—the anxiety of a first board exam, the mindset during the test, stress levels, preparation, ability to recall in the moment, health, and more. Exams are shaped by circumstances, which makes them inherently variable. Marks alone can’t define a person’s future. It depends enormously on where you are in life, what you’re aiming for, and which doors you’re trying to open.
By the end of the call, his voice had changed—not because his marks had changed, but because he understood that the canvas of life is vast, and there is much more to do than just write tests and be judged by marks.
To my student — I know you’ll read this eventually. I’m proud of you. Not for 78%. For the fact that you care this much, that you work this hard, and that you still called your teacher when you were lost. That’s the kind of person who figures it out.
Keep going. The story is just beginning.
To my readers — How important are marks in your opinion?
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