The debate over the use of the grading system in schools to evaluate the educational performance of students is getting more complicated as research and studies are going on about the relevance of the grading system in schools. For centuries, grades have been the primary form of evaluating the achievements of students. Parents imagine that grading is an indication of how dull or smart their children are and students felt the pressure of getting good grades to avoid punishment and to impress parents and teachers. While there is an ongoing debate about the advantage and disadvantage of the grading system, children are feeling the strain. The grading system comes with destructive effects on a child’s psychological health, growth and development, self-value and self-esteem. There is a common presumption among students that grades …show more content…
It is assumed and stated in the philosophy of the current education system that grading encourages learning. Although grades are a simple and immediate feedback mechanism they are inadequate and they do not represent all the quantities and qualities of a student. A student achieves what he or she achieves through all sorts of means—intelligence, talent, technology and support from teachers and parents. We cannot define if a student is dull or smart trough tests that is inadequate and restricting. Studies have shown that low-ability students are negatively affected by the grading system (Harlen & Deaken Crick, 2002) and in many cases students would have learn more if not being under the pressure of grading (Crooks, 1988). The grading system categorizes a student and does not provide an opportunity to make the student think out of the box. To fight poverty we are increasingly dependent of entrepreneurs. School systems must encourage the entrepreneur, help students build new skills and provide a foundation for lifelong
Grade inflation is a reality throughout the United States. This means that students are being awarded with higher grades than they deserve or worked for. This phenomenon is affecting the quality of education throughout the country. Students insist on getting ‘’their money's worth’’ when it comes to receiving grades. Teachers don’t want to be nagged by students and administration for low grades.
Vogel argues that, “If grades are money, then learning is a cost -- a painful effort one undergoes only for the reward it produces. That the learning might itself be the reward -- which is what we say about education -- makes no sense or is sentimental rubbish” (p.104, paragraph 11). Education has changed from what it used to be when Vogel was in school. When he was a college student, back in the seventies, “people I knew made it a point to not talk about their grades” (p.102, paragraph 1). He goes on to state that he never knew what even his close friends grades were, but they all graduated and went on to have good jobs.
In Carl Singleton’s article, “What Our Education System Needs is More F’s,” he argues that students aren’t receiving the failing grades they deserve. School systems are to blame for the lack of quality in America’s education. No other recommendation for improvement will succeed. The only way to fix the American education system is to fail more students. According to Singleton, the real root of the issue is with the parents.
Imagine blowing up a balloon, with every exhale of breath the balloon gets bigger. Similar to a balloon, with every year that passes grades inflate. In “Grade Inflation Gone Wild” by Stuart Rojstaczer, he discusses how the grading system has changed over the years. Rojstaczer’s overall purpose is to increase awareness of grade inflation and persuade his audience to take action. He argues that “changes in grading have had a profound influence on college life and learning” (2).
The Grading System: Completely Necessary Grades are an important part of the school system. Grades set the extraordinary students apart from the ordinary ones. In Jerry Farber’s essay, “A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System,” he argues that grades are the only motivation students have in school. Farber even calls it “phony motivation.” He argues that students do not actually learn anything.
In Alfie Kohn’s essay, the argument of grade expectations being too overvalued rests on a chain of assumptions, but can be argued. Alfie Kohn’s essay portrays that he wants students to find a variety of different purposes in school, and questions the idea of grades being too centralized. In detail, Alfie Kohn explains how students go to school not for the right reasons, but for the wrong reasons instead. For example, the author writes, “They’d scan the catalogue for college courses that promised easy A’s, sign up for new extracurricular-activities to round out their resumes, and react with gratitude when a professor told them exactly what they would have to know for the exam so they could ignore everything else” (para. 8).
In his article “I Just Wanna Be Average”, Rose makes the statement: “students will float to the mark you set” (Rose, 1989, p. 3). This remark is one of the truest I have ever read. When teachers have high expectations, students tend to rise up and meet those expectations. Students want to please their teachers and be praised by them. Rose describes: “I loved getting good grades from MacFarland…
Elona Kalaja Professor Eleni Saltourides ENG 101 Critical Analysis Paper February 21, 2018 Flunking vs Students In the article, “In Praise of the F Word” Mary Sherry argues that flunking students is a method that has been effective in the past and is still effective todays day, and anyone needs to see is as a positive teaching tool. Sherry indicates that flunking students is a method that motivates students to study more and to be more responsible for what is their responsibility. Students challenge is not to get an A or B, but to succeed or to fail.
In Kurt Wiesenfeld’s article “Making the Grade”, he address the issue that students want a higher grade than they deserve. He goes on to prove this be by giving examples of previous students that he has had and what can happen when students get the grades that they want and not what they deserve. In Wiesenfeld’s article he states that about ten percent of students that take his class do not care about their grades until final grades are over. “You might groan and moan, but you accepted it as the outcome of your efforts or lack thereof,” Wiesenfeld stated.
Students are fully aware of the positive and negative consequences of grade inflation whether it is something as simple as a grade curve or as drastic as a student trying to bargain their way into graduation. However, another smaller issue that arises is the “participation trophy.” When doing something, everyone gets an equal amount of victory. When discussing this topic in class, I realized that many of my peers saw participation trophies and inflated grades as one in the same. Both items apparently trigger narcissism and false hope in children.
These days students seem to think that if they don’t have the highest grade they won’t be able to get the job of their choice. He also stated that a stats professor got flak for proposing a new system to recalculate the grade point averages. This proposal made it seem that students would dodge the harder classes to take easier
Seika McKee Dickens ENGL 1113 1 OCT. 2015 The Hidden Education in the Poor Perhaps one of the most valuable opportunities in life is education. In a conversation between Adam Howard, associate professor of education at Antioch College, and Arthur Levine, president of Teachers College at Columbia University, in “Where Are The Poor Students,” some subjects at hand are the availability or unavailability of opportunities, the missed value of education, and the irrelevant comparison of test scores directed towards the poor students.
Some simply try to memorize for test and quizzes. Others feel grades don’t reflect their intelligence and can make them feel worthless for a lot of students grades are taught to be so hyper-focused on grades that aren’t going to matter in the real world. If you bombed your statistics math final in 10th grade you’re not going to be expected to learn that material in college if you 're an English major. Getting good grades shouldn’t be the main focus in school, but wanting to learn and become a better educated, well-rounded person who truly is able to process the information they
They lack the indication of students’ knowledge as they are only a depiction of their effort. Absences, laziness, and disengagements are just a few of the factors of why grades are a poor representation of students’ intellectual capacity. While others may argue that grades motivate them, it is not genuinely correct since grades encourage
There is great variation in accountability systems. In some, information on student achievement is published in league tables, and sanctions, including monetary rewards, are attached to performance for schools and teachers. The use of monetary rewards, however, has proved controversial, and usually has not lasted very long. Furthermore, rewarding successful schools at the expense of increasing resources to schools that are failing would not contribute to overall school improvement.