Hello from _______
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • The Blogs
  • Pictures
  • Blog Archives: 2012-2013
  • And etc.

blogging 2012-2013

Have another educational rant :)

2/12/2013

1 Comment

 
Hello from I have to blog today! After last week’s topic of different kinds of learning styles, Anna Beth mentioned something that I thought would be interesting to talk about. She mentioned how our grading system often tends to put the focus more on doing everything right in order to get a good grade instead of encouraging a natural desire to learn and explore. And I do agree. I know that personally my top priority tends to be on figuring out how I can get a good grade much more so than actually learning and gaining a deeper understanding of the subject, and I’m fairly certain I’m not the only one. It’s not even that I’m not interested in the subject; I like learning, and I usually enjoy the classes I’m taking. It’s just that I’m also a perfectionist, and I have definitely let that character trait affect my priorities when it comes to school. And there’s also the fact that grades are kind of important. Prospective colleges/scholarship offerers/employers (do employers look at your GPA? Idk…) are going to get their first impression of you based on that one simple number, as opposed to a lengthy interview where you explain everything you have learned over the course of your entire life. So you can’t exactly say that students don’t have a point when they get stressed over what grade they’re going to get.

Obviously, the emphasis that American schools place on grades and testing (don’t even get me started on standardized tests…) is an issue, and a lot of people would like for us to come up with an alternative, but that’s a lot easier said than done. Some people say we should just focus less on grades and not even really mention them to students. I know one college I looked at back in high school emphasized the fact that they only really record grades for the benefit of graduate schools that their students apply to. Now, I don’t know about you guys, but that would really, really stress me out. Just because the people giving you the grades don’t put much stock in them doesn’t mean that the aforementioned grad schools/colleges/people-holding-your-future-in-their-hands won’t. And at least when teachers and schools recognize the importance of grades, they’re willing to work with you to help you figure out what you need to do to achieve your goal score and how you can work to improve if you’re not where you want to be. De-emphasizing grades, I feel like, would give students pretty much no control. Like, I just imagine a student going up to the teacher to ask about an assignment, and the teacher being like,

“Oh, don’t worry about it.”

“But… did I do alright?”

“It’s not important. We don’t really care much about grades here.”

“But, but I need to know. Did I demonstrate proficiency in the concepts we’ve been discussing? Do you think I’m on track to be prepared for, like, my future?”

“Really, don’t worry about it. Your grades aren’t going to matter until you go try to get a job or something.”

…

And see, that does not seem very pleasant to me. (Obviously that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get what I mean, right? Despite the risk of grades becoming too prominent a factor in students’ actions, if you’re going to give them, students need to be aware of them and their
potential to affect their lives.)

So, if there’s no way to have grades without their importance being prominent, why don’t we just get rid of them all together? Teachers can just write out a summary of every student’s performance at the end of the grading period detailing the pupil’s strengths and weaknesses and providing the teacher’s opinion of the student’s proficiency. Which is all well and good, but do you think someone trying to determine if a student is right for their program/school/etc. is going to want to read all of that? We’re talking dozens of reports to wade through, and that’s just for one student. Considering that colleges can have thousands of applicants every year, I don’t think that’s a very feasible request. So grading systems are kind of necessary in a highly populated society such as ours. The people reviewing a student’s school records need a simple system to compare different students’ academic performance and determine who better suits what they’re looking for. So this is how we come to need letter grades and percentages to categorize people. The fact that, as I mentioned last week, people aren’t actually that easy to categorize, that no system can accurately represent the whole person and all their positive and negative features, is irrelevant. People are still innately driven to organize the world, other people included, into categories and try to make sense of their surroundings, and grades are just one product of that necessity to label.

I feel like I’ve kind of gone off on a tangent, but I also don’t feel like wading through all that to try and fix it. Sorry :/ To wrap things up, then, yes, grading is a problem. It puts the focus too much on reaching this abstract label and not enough on actually improving your skill and knowledge. But at the same time, our society requires that we have some sort of system to determine how well students do in their classes, and we have yet to come up with a better alternative. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing anyone can do to make it better. As a teacher, it’s important to try and make sure that high levels of learning correlate as closely as possible to high grades, so that the things students do to try and improve their grades will be deepening their knowledge at the same time (grading is, after all, supposed to be representative of learning). And as a student, I guess it’s important to recognize that grades, though important, are not the only thing of importance. It’s ok not to be perfect, as long as you’re doing your best and working toward whatever goals you have set for your future (definitely still trying to learn that lesson myself…).

And that is the end! Speaking of school stuff, though, I have my first field day of the semester tomorrow. That means I’ll be spending all day at an elementary school! With kindergartners! Eeeeeee!!!!!!! So that’s exciting :) Kbai!


Love,


Sara

1 Comment
Anna Beth
2/12/2013 08:13:06 am

Now, just because you said that, I kind of do want to get you started on standardized tests...lol.
You know, even though grades take a lot of the fun out of learning and kind of unintentionally choke out natural curiosity, there is that REALLY nice feeling of getting a good grade that encourages students to continue to excel. So that's something good about grades. That, and they make it easier to compare yourself to others, which, if you're one of the kids with good grades makes you feel better than 85% of your peers--um, I mean...no, none of us do that...
So let's get philosophical, shall we? Why do you think people are, as you say, "innately driven to organize the world, other people included, into categories and try to make sense of their surroundings?"
Also, KINDERGARTNERS!!!!! I second that EEEEEEE!!!!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Authors

    Each of us is assigned a certain day of the week to blog.
    Sunday Fundays:
    Shelbs Magee
    Munchkin Mondays:
    Mysterious Munchkin/Amy
    Taco/Question Tuesdays:
    Sara
    Creeper Wednesday:
    Rachael
    Talk Like a Brit Thursdays:
    Anna Beth
    Footface Fridays:
    Jill
    Spanish Soap Opera Saturdays:
    Amber/Sanaa/Guest

    Archives

    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012

    Categories

    All
    Amber
    Amy
    Anna Beth
    Jill
    Rachael
    Sanaa
    Sara
    Shelby

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.