Grades are as valuable as star-shaped stickers, yet they have the power to lay the foundation of our entire lives. The grades we earn have no commercial value, but students invest millions into taking a class to get a grade. In Jerry Farber’s essay “A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System,” he crushes society’s constant need for competition by pointing out all of the major flaws in the grading system and offering a new credit system as a solution. Farber is correct by claiming that the grading system is flawed, stressful, and overall, useless.
CHAPTER 2 • Cause/s of Failures Students get poor grades involve external factors, like the subject matter is too challenging that makes the students unable to follow in the discussion. The other reasons have to with poor attitudes, like not doing homework dillydallying, and skipping class. Lastly, there are reasons related to personal issues, such as test anxiety and concentrating problems. (Kurtus, 2012) • Student-related Factors • Not Ready for College Students aren’t prepared for post-secondary work and lack foundational skills that hinder to achieve passing grades.
First high achieving students grades are what keep them focused and motivated in school. On the other end of the spectrum are students who simply do not have the willpower or drive to earn high marks in school. There are students who focus who too much on grades, and by doing this end up memorizing the material being taught and not absorbing. They are like little robots spouting facts and information, but not being able to truly comprehend its meaning.
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).
Although the common belief is that certain aspects of school are important for an ideal education for all students, the main problems that need to be rectified as soon as possible include the lettered grading system and test scores as the main measure of achievement as well as a lack of disciplined and motivated in teachers who do their jobs correctly in order for their students to reach their full potential and excel in life. Out of all the issues with American education today, one of the most overvalued yet problematic for students is the grades and scores that represent their classroom proficiency and content knowledge. It is true that today, in the United States, the easiest and seemingly most reliable way to track student performance and rank schools by quality of education is by simply marking students based on their scores on assignments and assessments done in school or on standardized exams designed to measure mastery of content, and by comparing and analyzing the
Furthermore, her data shows that required attendance does not guarantee high achievement in courses. St. Clair concluded that low achievement in a course is usually due to a number of factors and is not dependent
Starting to really care for a good grade at a young age matters. But what some school boards don 't notice it that individual grades are going down. Sure many schools have the smart honor roll kids, but behind that are a bunch of D’s and F’s students. “The importance of physical fitness in the development of cognitive and memory skills have long been extolled by scientists. Cardiorespiratory capacity, muscular strength, and motor ability are components of physical fitness that have been known to improve mental health” (Iyer 1).
Educators do not take into consideration students that suffer from mental illness and
Students that get advanced scores on tests are able to move ahead and have better opportunities in their schools, but students that don’t score well are left behind, sometimes barely moving from grade to grade. When making changes to the schooling system, Thomas Jefferson said “twenty of the best geniuses will be raked from the rubbish annually” (Congressional Research Service, 269). The president of the United States of America, when setting up a part of the education system, said that only some of the extra-intelligent students would be taken and given amazing opportunities. He himself said that they would be taken from the rubbish,
The worst thing of all committing suicide (Bunnys4lifehw). One other thing is that when students are under a lot of pressure it can change their eating habits. Along with increased infections in the body and they won 't be able to concentrate (Conner,Pope,Galloway; Bunnys4lifehw;
They will need extra support in daily activities. Such illness also have different facial characteristics which can lead to bullying. When condition involves frequent absence from school due to hospital visits, children could miss school lesson, make it harder to learn the required material and fall behind in academic development. Some children
Stephanie explains in her research journal the relationship between students GPA and their social deviance. She explains that the higher the GPA, the lower the amount “antisocial behavior, the risk of dropping out, and committing a crime” I support the ideas that Stephanie tries to bring to the table, but I would like to add the idea of depression and disability. Deviance is not only the idea of being a criminal or being antisocial, but also the idea of being someone who struggles with their social life in terms of relationships with peers & instructors and also having to deal with a mental disability. GPA cannot mark someone with a mental or learning disability fairly. People with a learning disorder may have much more to contribute in a
“Whether physical or mental, health problems can be so distracting that they make it impossible for students to do their best. If a health problem, either suffered by yourself or a family member, is causing you to fall behind and your grades to suffer, you may need some time off” (Wilson). This quote shows that not taking a break could drop your grades and might even cause you to fail. Therefore, taking a break from school would refresh your brain and allow you to do well in school. Family is the most important thing in life, not seeing family too often might be one of the biggest mistakes and regrets.
In today’s society, a large amount of emphasis is placed on getting good grades. Day in and day out students are told that getting good grades is detrimental to their future. Unfortunately what many students are not told is that their intelligence is not defined by the marks they receive, but rather intelligence is defined by so much more than a letter on a report card. Albert Einstein once said, “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.