What does “Being brought up to speed is as important as being brought up to grade” mean?

Solution 1:

I think it's basically bad writing (the usage "winning" where it should be "winsome" put me off straight away), but let that pass...

The common idiom to bring [someone] up to speed means to quickly give a someone the basic information relevant to some ongoing problem/project/process, so they can usefully understand and/or contribute.

If you go round someone's house and they've just started watching a movie half an hour ago, they might quickly bring you up to speed so you know what's happening and can watch the rest of it with them. Or someone might come into a business meeting late, and need to be briefly filled in on what was covered before you arrived.

In a variety of "engineering" contexts, to bring [something] up to grade means to raise the level of something that's currently physically lower than it needs to end up, as a result of work being carried out.

For example: a trench is dug, a pipe laid, and most of the material dug out is replaced and compacted down. This normally results in a slight depression where the trench was, which must be brought up to grade to give a completely flat surface. A similar context arises when filling and sanding scratches in car bodywork.

Google Books also has references to bring up to grade for failing schoolchildren who aren't achieving their target academic grade level. It's hard to see how this is any more relevant than the established idiomatic usage above.

TL;DR: That's the background to factors that a reasonably educated reader might be expected to take into account. As regards what the writer actually intends to convey - basically he's contrasting [superficially irrelevant] knowledge gained from studying the past (getting up to speed) with knowledge of immediate practical value in the present (making the grade).

Since I'm wracking my brains over this one, I'll hazard a guess that learning in symbolic form means by study (of the past), and dramatic form means by doing (passing exams and otherwise succeeding in the present).

Solution 2:

Seems to me like speed signifies quantity and grade, quality, here.

Up to speed is a known idiom suggesting 'to know all that matters'. By analogy, up to grade should imply the quality of the knowledge, as in 'high grade' material.

Together, the literary device should mean, to gain knowledge in all its breadth and quality.

Solution 3:

The sentence "being brought up to speed is as important as being brought up to grade" is the conclusion to, and parallels, this earlier sentence:

Becoming an adult means learning a huge body of lore as much as it means learning to know right from wrong.

• being brought up to speed = learning a huge body of lore

The idiom "up to speed" means being fully informed or up to date on some matter.

• being brought up to grade = learning to know right from wrong

The phrase "up to grade" is related to the idiom "making the grade," which can variously mean "meet the standard," "satisfy the requirements," or "succeed."

Solution 4:

I love Gopnik's writing. Although I think this bit is a slight stretch of metaphors, it works anyway. The article as a whole contrasts history as a dull body of information vs. fantasy fiction which makes a fictional past come alive. His contention is that the allure that this fiction has for readers, especially school-age readers, is not a bad thing, but rather a good thing because when they feel that this fictional past matters, it follows that then they can grasp how the real past matters as well. In addition, they can understand that their own choices made in the present matter too. He's not contrasting the metaphors so much as saying how the first (being brought up to speed = understanding WHY the past matters) is equally as important as the second (being brought up to grade = learning the body of knowledge).
up to speed:
On World Wide Words: These days, up to speed mostly often appears in non-technical writing in the figurative sense of being fully informed or up to date on some matter... So many examples refer to a machine being brought up to operating speed — a boat, an electric motor, a car, or indeed a film camera — that it looks as though that was the source. ... However, the origin may not be mechanical but a person or animal that was performing at its best rate. The Oxford English Dictionary quotes the New York Times of 1879: “The mare was shown and her qualities and record were expatiated on. She looked decent and up to speed.” I found another in a book of 1857 about a voyage of exploration, in which the writer is chasing a boat that’s floating away, which he knew would leave them stranded if he didn’t retrieve it: “It was this conviction which, combined with my ‘badly-scared’ condition, served to keep me up to speed, while I felt every moment more and more like fainting.”

So my understanding is that the teenager would be "up to speed" if he is fully informed or aware of why the past matters.

up to grade On dictionary.com: Idioms 23.at grade, a. on the same level: A railroad crosses a highway at grade... 24. make the grade, to attain a specific goal; succeed: He'll never make the grade in medical school. 25. up to grade, of the desired or required quality: This shipment is not up to grade.

So in sense #25, the teenager would be "up to grade" when he has learned his history lessons. But I can also see why the metaphor echoes also with meanings 23 (the student gaining knowledge filled in to "ground level"), or 24 (the student reaching the goals of his school), or even resonating with the noun definition of the grade being the student's class in school.