The Case Against Grades
Comments(1) After reading the article The Case Against Grades by Kohn I began to wonder, are we being too easy with youth today. Kohn suggests in the article that instead of grades we should implement “narrative assessments”. I understand that as an institution, education is trying to stay in touch with the youth it teaches and help provide an atmosphere that encourages students to come to school everyday and be motivated, excited and relaxed when it comes to learning. However, I do not believe that getting rid of grades is the answer. I believe that if students were to receive “narrative assessments” that probably they would be noticeably more relaxed in a classroom environment but at the same time I believe many students wouldn’t be as driven. If a student knows that they aren’t being graded perhaps they wouldn’t put the same effort into their work that they would if they were being graded. For example, this is out of school context but I still feel is relevant, when I worked for The Gap approximately ten years ago each sales person who worked there had a sales goal they had to try and achieve every shift. When an employee would arrive they would see where in the store they were assigned and then beside the section they would be given a fair but challenging sales goal. If an employee did not reach the goal they were not reprimanded or fired but if they were not able to meet goals regularly they might be asked to get advice from other employees to learn how to be better sales representatives. Now I can understand that when a customer shopped there it would be aggravating every so often to be constantly approached by employees offering to help, sometimes even being approached twice by the same employee because they forgot a face! This had happened because they were driven to accomplish a goal, an end product. When Gap got rid of the sales goals I noticed an almost immediate drop in salesmanship. Employees would congregate in the dressing area or stock room and customers would be looking for help. This was because the employees were not driven any longer. The same could happen with students. Without a goal to achieve students, quite possibly, will just give the amount of effort they need to adequately move on and nothing more. Does this mentality honestly benefit them?
Maybe the enemy isn’t necessarily the grade itself but in how we grade. Maybe teachers put too much emphasis grading the final product rather than the process that leads to the final product. I understand for some classes such as math that the final product is just as important as process. Even other science class and classes with tests that have definitive answers. I feel though that some class, such as many art classes, have the opportunity to put more emphasis into the process that the student is doing compared to the final product. If we,as teachers, give a very specific rubric of what we are looking for and let the students know before they begin then maybe we have the chance to really encourage students to experiment and be brave with their work and not worry so much about failing in the end. Emphasis will be focused on students work ethic and not so much on their final product. I believe that if the students know that their work ethic is the primary focus of attention for their grade that their final product will be good regardless and if not then if they tried hard at least they will not fail.
I have also wondered if we are being too easy on youth today, both in terms of grades as well as expectations. I feel that getting rid of grades would lead to students feeling unsure of where they stand, or lead them to stop caring about their work/ not care as much. Even in this program, I have fallen into both of the categories above at certain points, and have also witnessed a similar situation to the one you illustrate about The Gap it in a retail setting. While I think the “Pass/Fail” and qualitative feedback system works in this program, it is because we are all capable students who, for the most part I’m guessing, been brought up in a system with grades that influenced our work habits, and let us know where we were against where we wanted to be.
Giving students percentages or letter grades is not going to damage them – if it does, there is perhaps a larger problem at play. I say this assuming that the teacher in question is grading fairly, and that the grade accurately reflects the assignment. If expectations are made clear, and there is help and support available when needed during the process of completing the assignment, then I don’t think there’s anything wrong with letting a student know where they stand. I think this correlates to your point about the enemy not being the grade, but how we grade. In my own practice, I would provide a quantitative grade alongside qualitative feedback, such as comments on an essay, which is easy to do in an English classroom. It is my opinion that quantitative grades are a necessary part of schooling, though, when possible, should be paired with qualitative feedback to provide a well-rounded and helpful assessment that the student can learn from.