In today’s society we feel the need to be graded in order to learn. The topic of the grading system has sparked three essays, by three different authors, about the pros and cons of the grading system. First, Jerry Farber, professor at University of California at San Diego, wrote A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System (333). Next is Steven Vogel, professor at Denison University, who wrote Grades and Money (337). The last two authors in this compilation are Stephen Goode and Timothy W. Maier. They both are journalists for Insight on the News. While each of these authors have their own point of view on the grading system, all three essays talk about how being graded affects learning.
Before we can look at how grading affects learning Farber suggests we look at how it has affected students (333-334). The greatest effect of being graded happens to the individual. Farber asks, “Did you need grades to learn how to drive?” We have become “grade junkies.” Without the grades students can’t learn (333). Vogel agrees that students believe grades are the motivating factor in learning, but only for the money. Students want the grades because high GPA’s equal high paying jobs (338-339). Another negative effect of grades is that students want the best grade with the least amount of learning but this causes conflict with professors because the professor’s goal is different compared to the student’s (339). Grades have positive effects too. Farber believes that grades give us discipline, but not self-discipline. True self-discipline comes from wanting something not coercion (334). Farber defines self-discipline as revising one paragraph all night because one enjoys it (334.)
We see a constant struggle between students and professors when it comes to the grading scale. These differences make learning a hassle. “I am placed in the position of having to figure out new ways to trick them into learning by designing ingenious new ways to grade,” says Vogel (339). The present grading system pushes students to take easy classes. Students on scholarships are afraid of taking hard classes because they run the risk of loosing financial aid if their grades don’t meet the average (Vogel 339). Farber agrees, “Getting graded turns people away from hard subjects,” (334). He offers his readers a utopia free of grades. This new...
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...eat of a change we can hope for the best (Farber 335).
Works Cited
Vogel, Steven “Grades and Money” Dissent Fall 1997: 102-04 in Mary Lynch Kennedy and Haley M. Smith. Reading and writing tin the Academic Community. 2nd ed, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall 2001. 337-340.
Farber, Jerry “ A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System” Dissent Fall 1997: 102-04 in Mary Lynch Kennedy and Haley M. Smith. Reading and writing in the Academic Community. 2nd ed, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall 2001. 333-336.
Goode, Stephen and Maier, Timothy W. “ Inflating the Grades” Dissent Fall 1997: 102-04 in Mary Lynch Kennedy and Haley M. Smith. Reading and writing in the Academic Community. 2nd ed, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall 2001. 345-350.
In his essay, "Why Colleges Shower Their Students With A’s,” Staples claims that student grades are increasing for the wrong reasons, causing college degrees to become meaningless. Staples provides evidence that average grades have increased significantly over the last several decades, but claims that it is not because students are working harder. The real explanation for grade inflation, he argues, is the effect of grades on both students and their professors. Teachers give more A’s to receive better evaluations and increase job security. Students give more importance to their grades as a result of the rapidly increasing cost of a college education. Staples argues that modern
For one thing, weighting grades gives students and colleges the ability to examine a more accurate comparison of students from various schools with varying course schedule difficulties (Clinedinst). The thing is, these benefits mainly aid the gifted, college bound students in that it makes them stand out. This brings the opposition of weighted GPAs to argue that the actual weighting does not provide an equal playing field. J. Bravin argues in his book, The Executive Educator, that “The traditional reporting method, assigning grades of A, B, C, D, and F to student work, discourages college-bound students from electing to take classes that require rigorous effort… and leads to an inconsistent standard” (40). Since weighted GPAs lead to inequalities, educators around the country have protested traditional reporting methods, saying things similar to, “The only ones being penalized by not having weighted grades are our students” (Cognard
I have always valued school and enlarging my intelligence; I receive a sense of pride from earning a decent grade on a paper or on a particular assignment. Alfie Kohn wrote an essay titled “From Degrading to De-grading”; in it he suggests a different view on the current education system. Even though students expect marks and even seem dependent on them, grading should spur on a love of studying not deter it. Grades tend to reduce a student’s inclination for stimulating tasks, and lessen students’ interest in erudition.
In other words, two teachers may give the same assignment two completely different grades based on their own grading style. This puts an incredible amount of stress on a student because they need to complete assignments that will satisfy their current teacher, whose expectations and grading style could be very similar or very different from the student’s previous teacher. Alfie Kohn believes that the influence grades have on a student’s life doesn’t help this situation, and may even make it worse by providing students with a false sense of security about their knowledge. In her article “From Degrading to De-grading”, she states that scores on tests can be largely based on how the test was written and what skills were tested (Kohn 240). Therefore, it is up to teachers to identify what topics students must master in order to be proficient and score well on standardized tests. But when the class is not structured with a consideration for the material used on such tests, students enter the test blind to the skills that they will be expected to know and use. Anyone can memorize a list of facts off a study guide and score well on a multiple choice test the next day, but skills such as analyzing literature and interpreting a handful of graphs containing data from a scientific experiment are skills that require time and hours of instruction to master.
Alfie Kohn’s proposal to stop grading students sounds great except that it oversimplifies problems in education and what really harms students. In his own article Kohn states the obvious objections towards grades, yet dismisses them and interjects that a gradual reduction in grading will eventually lead to more successful students. However, schools around the world have grading systems similar to the U.S. grading system yet their students continue to thrive. The problem is not grades, the problem is more complex and complicated. What harms students is inequality, unmotivated teachers, Common Core, lack of creative outlets, expensive tuition, and student mental health.
Being a professor himself, Rojstaczer admits that he is also guilty of grade inflation. Rojstaczer describes, “If I sprinkle my classroom with the C’s some students deserve, my class will suffer from declining enrollment in future years. Low enrollment is taken as a sign of poor-quality instruction.” The author describes the challenge that he has as a professor to students and dealing with the grade inflation. According to Rojstaczer, Grade inflation is everywhere and most everyone has experienced or had done it themselves. Even though Rojstaczer is guilty of committing grade inflation, he correspondingly realizes the problems that the system and the students will have in the
Through his essay, Farber argues against the grading system for a multitude of reasons. Farber mentions how comparable the grading scale is to slave work. He fights that slave work causes the thought of dull learning. This is because when forced to learn, as slaves were forced to work, learning
The argument on the debate on whether or not the academic grading system is fair or not, isn’t something that is discussed too often. We have come to accept that the current grading system is the norm and that it is something that is unchangeable. To question the fairness of grading in this debate, isn’t on how it was adopted, but rather on how much of a student’s progress is up for interpretation. With varying opinions from Professors, it makes it difficult to set a standard of work across the board. The need for a grading system is understandable, even necessary to be able to mark the performance of students, especially in higher education. A student’s knowledge is pivotal in obtaining employment and becoming
In the article “Making the Grade,” published in Newsweek Magazine, Professor Kurt Wiesenfeld states that students in the modern society believe that they should receive grades based on their desires and potential rather than their academic performance and personal effort. It is arguable that students should be allowed to have some leniency based on the fact that there may be obstacles distracting or refraining them from completing their work. I believe that it is the students responsibility to maintain or improve their grades by implementing hard work, consistency and dedication to their studies.
Thomas, C. (2011). Is the American Dream Over? They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (2nd ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
Graff, G., Birkenstein, C., & Durst, R. K. (2009). The Growing College Gap. "They say/I say": the moves that matter in academic writing : with readings (p. 379). New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
In “How Grading Reform Changed Our School,” author Jeffrey A. Erickson discusses about how it is common in high schools to pass each student by their accumulated average of the entire class period. He described many examples to display the way of grading in high schools such as in behaviors, lessons, and tasks. He talks about the changes that were made and were in effect to achieve a grading average that reflects the student 's’ abilities and knowledge .
Seeing this, the ability of grades to influence and create positive and negative roles to students remains to be the responsibility of the educator. Given that grades help manifest a standard for students to adhere to, teachers must try to create an environment where they can facilitate and motivate students to do better (Tomlinson, 2001). By using grades as an instrument for development, it can create a positive perception for students to improve and seek connections with instruction and course content.
Mark W. Durm stated that, “it was not until 1792 that Cambridge University implemented the GPA and started the legitimate grading system” (2). In the 18th century, teachers were paid based on the sizes of their classrooms. Over time, the grading policy adapted to lessen teacher’s workloads, allowing them to have bigger classes. Due to this structure, the students’ success became less important than the grading system. The system used before the GPA was more advantageous than the newly implemented system. For example, more students interacted with each other, causing the students to learn important communication skills. The students’ level of friendly competition and understanding in the classroom was enough for the teacher to grasp that the students understood the material (gpa-calculator.us). The GPA grading system changed learning because it made grading easier for teachers to assign points and a grade, rather than making sure the students understood the concepts. This is why students today solely obsess over getting an ‘A’, rather than appreciating how to obtain knowledge for the sake of individual growth and understanding. By the 20th century, most schools in the United States had conformed to the GPA grading system and introduced a whole new structure of
Tierney, John. "Why Teachers Secretly Hate Grading Papers." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 09 Jan. 2013. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.