Schooling is the most important part of childhood and with school comes grades. Grades are the most important part of determining whether or not students are showing intellectual growth or if a student is lagging behind. However, people argue that grades are not the best option in determining whether or not a student is learning up to speed. While school, just like anything else, has its flaws, the grading system has been successful and does not need to be changed.
First, grades should continue to be used because they accurately reflect a student’s intelligence. After being a student and receiving grades for 13 years, I consider myself to be an expert when it comes to receiving grades. And in my expert opinion, my grade has accurately represented
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I do not see any other feasible way to try and evaluate progress for a few reasons. For starters, there needs to be a benchmark that students have to try and achieve or exceed. Without a benchmark, students will not know whether they are an average, below average, or above average student. The letter grading system does this better than any alternative ranking system. For instance, in the letter grading system, the benchmark letter grade is a “C”. If a student receives a “C” the student is considered average. If the student receives a grade higher than a “C” then the student is considered an above average student, and if the student receives a grade lower than a “C” than the student is considered below average and needs to work harder in that class to strive to be a better student. I personally cannot see another way to try and evaluate progress without the letter grading scale or something extremely …show more content…
Some students feel that the grades that he or she receives does not accurately reflect his or her knowledge and effort of a particular subject area. The most common reason that students use as to why grades should be abolished is that teachers can be ineffective educators and may not put forward the required effort to present material in a way that students will comprehend. While some teachers may have stronger work ethics than others, the teacher is still qualified and may just not teach to your liking. A professional teacher is a master of their skill. Just because a student does not agree with a typical teaching style is not a valid reason for doing away with a particular grading
In her article, “The Case Against GRADES”, Alfie Kohn discusses the grading system and its faults. She opens her argument with information from an older psychological study that proves the negative impact of the current grading system, and she reinforces this with the proof that “no” research has contradicted this statement. Also, she gives many key reasons including: “Motivation”, “Achievement”, “Quantification”, and “Curriculum”. Kohn supports these topics with other reasearch for why the system is failing the students. She asserts that, “… the absence of grading is a necessary condition for promoting deep thinking and a desire to engage in it.” As support, she offers other solutions and then debunks them by proving that they would not solve
In “What is a Grade” by Pat Belanoff, she explains the pros and cons of the grading system. In Pats ' essay she states “Perhaps the solution would to abandon grading altogether in writing class. I confess that this a solution that appeals to me greatly.” (151). Grades should not be present in the way we test students’ learning ability. School seems to be more about learning the material for a brief moment just to get a good grade rather then to actually learn and think about the information being presented.
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 .
Colleges in America grade students academically for successful careers. For years students grades were calculate by an alphabetic/numeric grade scale. Today colleges are questioning whether grades should be determined by continuing to use a grade scale or switch to a pass/fail scale. Although, there were numerous of factors both positive and negative about a pass/fail system to take into consideration before making a decision. I feel that colleges in America should continue to use a grade scale to convey to students that grades have consequences, open doors to opportunity, and alleviates perturbation.
The article written by Michael Thomsen addresses the issue: should we as a society continue using a standardized grading system. Thomsen includes many reasons supporting his ultimate conclusion that we should not continue with any system of standardized grades. However, the reasons he uses to support his conclusion are affected by significant ambiguity which weakens the overall argument.
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.
The educational system must keep a certain number of children in schools at all costs. Sometimes the system is not concerned with the performance of the students as long as they are in school. If teachers graded the way they should, the failure rates would be much higher than they are today.
One of the issues, which Boyer points out , is that teachers and students have different expectations from college education. She says that the teachers are mainly concerned about students’ comprehension of the material, their attendance and attention while students’ hopes are to get good grades and to be well prepared for exams. It seems that the system of grading pushes students to not care too much about what is being taught from an understanding perspective, but only promotes more concern about grades instead. Some students don't really pay attention unless the instructor mentions an exam or something that will be graded. Furthermore, be...
Education is undoubtedly one of the most important parts of any human society. Without it human beings could not have been at the current point of time where we all know tremendously about life and the universe. We are now better off than we were. However, it is clear that there is still huge variety of phenomena waiting for our discovery. The most important objective of education is to help human beings pursue their burning desires to learn and reach their potential. In that way we progress. Therefore, it is vital to help or at least not hinder education to fulfill its goals.
By nature, most students are brought up in an academic environment motivated to get A’s and B’s on their report cards. Those grades sometimes don’t thoroughly report how much a student has learned or gained knowledge in each topic. Some instructors throw in factors totally unrelated to learning, when the main objective of academic institutions is to learn. In order to clearly demonstrate how much a student has learned in the classroom, schools should change their current grading system and teach students how to learn.
Grading System Reform Teachers have always used grades to measure the amount a student has learned. This practice is becoming ineffective. Many students have a wide range of grades, which shows that grades may not show what a student really knows. Therefore, the standard grading system should be replaced. Some reasons why grades should be replaced are bad grades can hinder a child’s performance, grades define who a student is in the classroom, and grades are not an effective way to see if students have learned the material.
As a student you are evaluated everyday, but have you ever desired to be the one doing the grading? This is a thought provoking idea. Teachers grade students on almost everything these days; including participation and behavior. So wouldn’t it be nice to return the favor? Although it may sound like a great idea, it could also be a very bad one. If students were able to grade their teachers it could provide proper and thorough evaluation; help teachers to improve on what they may be lacking, and help parents understand what is going on in the classroom; but at the same time it could prove to be harmful to the student and a good teacher’s career if not implemented correctly. This is why it’s important to recognize the possible positive impacts, the negative impacts, and the current programs that are in place, and their impacts.
“What makes a child gifted and talented may not always be good grades in school, but a different way of looking at the world and learning.” That’s what the senior United States Senator from Iowa Chuck Grassley once said. When students get a “F” on their exam, that does not necessary means they are stupid, or they do not know the material. It could only mean they have a different way of learning, or a different way of explaining the material which the teacher is not aware of. There are different ways of learning that students have, and there are different ways they apply their knowledge into real life. Therefore, grades are not the best way to judge the students’ standing in their classes, nor is it the best way to judge their learning process. In addition,
...ke school something that the students can look back on and think that it was a meaningful time where they learned a lot about life instead of a time where they thought they would have a break down because they got a low score on a test. School should be a time to make mistakes in a safe environment that they can learn from, not a place that they are petrified to make a mistake for fear of retribution on their grade cards. Its time to change the school system to save future students from becoming stress crazed and to let them know that there is more to this world than a grade card and in the long run it is a very small fraction of life.
Students entering college for the first time look forward to the numerous tests that they are required to take least of all. Test taking and college are in tandem for many, but some debate that using testing as a grading system should be discontinued in universities. In theory it sounds like a great idea. It would cut back on stress and, more than likely, class time as well. However, stopping testing as a form of grading in universities would be soon regretted. Grading systems are an essential part of any education. Tests insure that that the student is learning what the teaching is teaching and identify areas that may need improving. The results from grading systems also show future employers or schools a glimpse of the kind of worker that a student will be. The numerous lists of positive effects on not only the students but the teachers, and even the university as a whole, outweigh the cons of using testing as a grading system.