Like any student, college students always want the easiest way out and still attain a good grade. That was basically my experience in high school. Teachers just gave credit to assignments that seemed like the students put a lot of effort into it. I actually gave advice to underclassmen by encouraging them to do the work regardless if it is right. I would also receive credit for things that had nothing to do with materials learning in class. If I had a graduation speech I would really thank tissue boxes for increasing my grade and passing. In high school, I would slack off all the time and procrastinated everything. Teachers seemed like they did not care and did not encourage me to stop those bad habits. Unfortunately, today I still struggle with those habits and I felt unprepared to start college. After reading “Making the Grade” by Kurt Wiesenfel, I began to understand a lot about education and students. I agree with Wiesenfels’ article on how college students expect higher grades even when they know they do not deserve it, because they were taught to just do the bare minimum and they received good enough grades in previous academic levels.
Kurt Wiesenfel wrote this article for the Daily Beast and explains his personal story and explanation for college students demanding high grades from little effort. He begins the article with accounts of students begging for ways on how to improve their grade after being posted. He even explains how students still begged when they knew and admitted they do not deserve the grade they please. College students just aim for minimal effort; effort so low that they expect to pass by just showing up to class (Wiesenfel). He goes onto explaining how students rarely consider the opportunity to learn....
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... their immaturity and inability to do maximum work restricts them from attaining that grade. This implore for a better grade leads to unnecessary praise and lack of preparation. This could easily be preventable with preparation and tough encouragement from previous academic levels. Soon undergraduates will understand why they received the grade they attained and will not make the classroom a location to beg.
Works Cited
McCullough, David, Jr. “You Are Not Special Commencement Speech.” Wellesley Channel TV. YouTube. 7 June 2012. Web. 26 Nov. 2012
Wiesenfeld, Kurt. “Making the Grade.” The Daily Beast. The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company, LLC. 17 June 1996. 27 Aug. 2013
Zaslow, Jeffrey. “The Most Praised Generation Goes to Work.” The Wall Street Journal 2007. Rpt. In American Mashup. Ed. Aaron Michael Morales. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2012. 550-556. Print
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
“Making the Grade” by Kurt Wiesenfeld Newsweek magazine, June 27 1996 brings to light an issue that has been glazed over by society for some time, grade inflation. It’s highly disturbing that “we lament that schoolchildren get “kicked upstairs” until they graduate from high school despite being illiterate and mathematically inept, but we seem unconcerned with college graduates whose less blatant deficiencies are far more harmful, if their accreditation exceeds their qualifications”. The issue of grade inflation is not simply an issue of students feeling entitled to higher grades than they have earned, it is a problem that directly impacts our society in a multitude of negative ways. Perhaps the “gold star” mentality started out with the good intentions of creating children with positive self-esteem, however, a direct result is lazy adults with a sense of entitlement for no reason, who lack qualifications to adequately and safely perform their jobs.
Most students do care about their grades and want to succeed, so they may go into argue their grades. As shown in examples though, parents become very upset with their kids if they do not achieve up to their high class standards. A very good point is made by Shepard. Not all kids are good enough to receive A's. Parents need to be satisfied with a B because that is in the upper part of the college usually. Obtaining an A or A plus should be almost a honor. Shepard grabs the attention of me and other people by discussing how getting a B should be relieving still, even if it isn't
Ultimately, by these students tieing their self image to getting the highest possible grade it can lead them to some serious Problems, the students not learning to their full potential, and negatively affect their career. Grades play a role in education but grades should not define a student like it does today.
In his essay, “Why Colleges Shower Their Students with A’s,” Brent Staples argues that grade inflation in colleges results in college degrees becoming less valuable. Staples points out that grade inflation is happening among all colleges and there are many factors contributing to this problem. Colleges are willingly giving students good grades that they do not deserve so that the course will not be omitted from the lack of attendance. Part-time teachers’ jobs are at risk because their position is not guaranteed. These teachers were sometimes threatened by the students saying they will complain if their grades are not adjusted for a higher score. With this being said, students are putting pressure on teachers, causing their jobs to be in danger.
The first point that Etelson makes in her article is about the pressure that students are under today, she often refers to it as “educational pressure cooker” (Etelson, 2015). Today, every student is overwhelmed with pressure. Middle class students have pressure to get into a top college. Poor students feel
Grades do motivate students to do better but, grades cause students to want to get a good grade instead of fully mastering the material. They look at school just trying to pass which promotes cheating on tests and homework. They also will choose the material that is the easiest and choose a class with a professor who doesn’t care to raise their GPA. School is supposed to be about learning and understanding new material to help gain knowledge and a new way of thinking.
There is a student Emma, who has recently graduated from Austin High School, where 90/10 grading system is used; 90% of Emma’s grade is knowledge based with scores such as tests and projects, while her practice work such as homework is worth 10% of her grade. Emma, finds school somewhat easy and since homework was only 10% of her grade, so she often did not bother to do her practice work. Even though she did not do her homework through high school she managed to keep above a 3.00 GPA. When Emma enters college, she is shocked to see that she would have to complete homework, and that it would affect her grade drastically if she didn’t complete her homework. Emma is feeling unprepared and overloaded with work. She is not prepared for college,
In contrast to the belief of many, Computer science professor at Yale, Dana Augluin, suggest that grade inflation is actually a good thing. She states “The desire for approval is a primary and crucial motivation for children. By the time they reach higher education, most students have developed an extraordinary sensitivity to grades and evaluation, and are situated well towards an anxiety end of the spectrum. But their task here is to grow away from that regime, towards intrinsic motivation, critically examined values and real thought”. (Jost 8) Within this quote she presents the idea that grades should not be the main focus. Grades are little more than something to reward the students for their work. In her opinion the University’s job is to prepare the students for life and teach them valuable life lessons that they can use to succeed.
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.
Numerous college students today feel as if they are not adequate enough. So much is put on their plate, and above it all, in order to maintain moving forward academically towards a career, they must showcase themselves. This idea is explored in “College Pressures” by William Zinsser. He discusses why students are driven to try so vigorously in order to earn a step ahead, yet the reasoning is arguable.
William Zinsser’s essay “College Pressures” emphasizes the struggles students have in trying to conquer the college milestone in life. Zinsser believes that college has lost the authenticity of the overall goal of gaining knowledge for one’s own interest, rather than the overall need of going. He sympathizes with struggles college kids go through and hopes to provide insight on the overall situation. One of his major points are that succeeding the first time is not always the best way in learning, and that sometimes students need to fail in order to properly learn. The author mentions the “Four pressures, economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure” and how there are “No villains; only victims” that fall
A statement from the Huffington Post states, “From a very young age, we are told the importance of getting good grades. Especially in high school, we are told time and time again that our grades affect what college we will get into. While grades are extremely important, people often forget about the importance of learning, not just getting good grades. There is a difference between the grade received in a course and the amount of learning that took place in the course.” Parents and institutions should teach the importance of learning. The society around the upbringing of students emphasizes getting good grades as apposed to getting every detail and aspect mastered. School priorities should be reevaluated and changed for future students
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Are the new standards and expectations the world has for teenagers really creating monsters? The amount of stress that is put on students these days between trying to balance school, homework, extra curricular activities, social lives, sleep and a healthy lifestyle is being considered a health epidemic (Palmer, 2005). Students are obsessing over getting the grades that are expected of them to please those that push them, and in return, lose sleep and give up other aspects of their lives that are important to them, such as time with friends and family, as well as activities that they enjoy. The stress that they endure from the pressures of parents, teachers, colleges, and peers has many physical as well as mental effects on every student, some more harmful than others. The extreme pressure on students to get perfect grades so that they will be accepted into a college has diminished the concept of actually learning and has left the art of “financing the system” in order to succeed in its place (Palmer, 2005).