Grades: Help or Hindrance?

"Without grades we can not learn." (Farber 333) Many people believe grades are the single strongest inhibitor of learning. Grades motivate me more than anything else to try and learn in school and do well on tests and quizzes. Grades are what set all students apart from each other. I believe grades are a tremendous motivational tool and can be used to "trick" students into learning. They sometimes can cause fear, and they can be "received" not earned due to unfair circumstances. Grades can be good, bad, and ugly.

Grades can be a great motivator. Most of the time grades inspire me to do my best. Without grades I would have no reason to try in school. Grades trick students into learning. Most students want to receive good grades, but to receive good grades you most do your work which will help you learn. If I knew that I wasn't going to be given a grade on a certain assignment I wouldn't have any motivation to do the assignment. Vogel states that he is "placed in the position of having to figure out new

ways to trick them [students] into learning by designing ingenious new ways to grade." (Vogel 339) Most of the time when students are given an assignment and they know they are not going to be graded on it, they will not bother to do the assignment. If they do choose to do the assignment they are just doing it to complete it, not to learn the material involved. When a student knows that they will be graded and tested on the assignment then it is a different story. The students will most likely complete the assignment and do it correctly so that they will receive a good grade. This concept works with reading too. If students are assigned to read but are told they won't be tested or graded on it, the students will feel...

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...me too much of a factor and prevent kids from challenging themselves and learning new materials that they are interested in because they are afraid of not receiving a good grade. Sometimes grades are "given" and not earned. Even though grades are good, bad and ugly, they are still the single most important indicator of a students success. "We're grade junkies- convinced that we'd never learn without the A's and F's to keep us going." (Farber 333)

Works Cited

Farber, Jerry. "A Young Person's Guide to the Grading System." Reading and Writing in the Academic Community. 2nd ed. Mary Lynch Kennedy and Hadley M. Smith. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2001. P.333

Vogel, Steven. "Grades and Money." Reading and Writing in the Academic Community. 2nd ed. Mary Lynch Kennedy and Hadley M. Smith. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2001. 338-339