How many points is that worth?

In class before our disscusion of the history behind The Crucible, we had a disscusion about note takeing in gerneral, a seemingly odd topic. The first idea that pops into my head when I hear "a disscusion about note takeing" is that the teachers want notes in a certain format because they will later be collected and graded. However in actuality the disscussion was about the opposite. That our Notes are our interpretations of what we think is most importatnt, and will help us to understand the material. My automatic mind as a student almost couldnt understand; teachers were talking about something that we as students do, but they wern't talking about points, grades, acceptable or unacceptable headings. They were simply talking about ways to better our understanding. Whoa. I feel like we are so constantly bombarded with the idea of the absolute importance on grades and how they will dictate the course of our lives, that we often forgett to actualy learn what we are being taught as apposed to memorizing it for the test. I feel like there is so much emphasis put on getting the "A" or doing a good score on the test by both teachers and parents that we as students consider the actual learning of the material to be secound behind just "knowing it for the test." Do you think that all the grade hype has damaged actual learning?