blah blah blah blah blah
it's 6am. i've got class at 9:30, so i shouldn't even bother going to sleep. here's a shoddy little essay i wrote just for the hell of it. it's pretty long though, so don't bother reading it. or do bother reading it. whatever floats your boat.
Grades are Necessary
Grades can have a potentially dangerous effect on students, causing them to give higher priority to the grade received on completing a course then the material learned during it. When a student values a higher grade more than the knowledge itself, unhealthy habits such as cheating and plagiarism could form. However, without some form of a grading system, educational structures as we know them couldn’t exist. There must be some form of gauging a student’s proficiency with a course’s material and comparing it to some standard. Without some form of gauging, how will anyone know how proficient a student with any given subject? Grading is a necessary part of society’s educational structure.
In order to understand the necessity for a grading system, we must first understand the nature of the entire educational structure. Let’s start off with a group of children; each one different from the next in terms of intelligence, interests, and learning capabilities. If we stick them all in the same classroom, they would all learn what their instructor teaches them based on their own unique capabilities. One group of students might learn slower then the rest and struggle through the class, while another will find the class too easy and unchallenging. A third group might already know what their instructor is teaching them. Now if these children were separated based on their capabilities, they would learn more efficiently. The students who were slower would all be in a class with an instructor going at a slower pace. The unchallenged students would be in a class where their instructor teaches more advanced and challenging material. The students who already know the material would be in a different class teaching entirely different material. This way, all the students are put in specialized classes that fit their unique characteristics more efficiently. In a real world example, the same thing occurs in elementary school when children are placed in Special Ed. classes or gifted classes or placed in a higher grade.
However, it would be impossible to determine which class fits each student without some sort of standard to measure each student’s characteristics. There would have to be some method of evaluating the students that would recognize the differences between them. This method of evaluating differences is not limited to elementary school systems; it’s essential to college admissions and employment as well. Universities and employers must differentiate between the candidates and determine which are most suited for their colleges and companies. Standardized tests and grades are simply useful evaluations of a person’s capabilities in certain areas of expertise. Several evaluations reflect more than the students alone, too. Teachers and professors are evaluated based on how well their students performed in their classes. High schools are evaluated based on how well their students do on state tests. Without these forms of standard evaluation, measuring the effectiveness of the instructors and schools would be extremely difficult. An interesting scenario involves home schooling, where a student learns everything based solely on his unique capabilities. Ideally, this form of learning would be the most efficient, as the student’s progress in learning would be evaluated by the teacher who literally taught them everything they know. But if that home schooled student wanted to enroll in a university or obtain an upstanding career, they would most likely have to take a standardized test to show their aptitude to their future employers. In all scenarios, some form of standard evaluation is necessary.
Some argue that grades should be abolished and replaced with testing evaluations. However, this replacement doesn’t abolish the grading system in itself, it only makes some modifications. Instead of students being evaluated on a scale from A to F, scales with numerical values are used. Either way, the students’ proficiency in the material is evaluated and given a defined score, whether it’s a letter, percentage, or numerical score. It’s important to note that pass/fail systems are no different. In fact, they are worse than letter grades because they use a much more basic scale. The student’s proficiency is either acceptable or unacceptable; there is no differentiating between students who are highly qualified from those who are barely qualified.
I must concede that grading systems with larger scales are more accurate at measuring a student’s proficiency when compared to smaller scales. That is why GPAs are now counted in 3 digit numbers like 3.74 instead of simple “A”s or “A-”s, they allow for the recognition of smaller differences. A student with a grade of 3.40 would be recognized as equally productive as another student with a 3.15 in the same class if their GPAs were converted to a letter grade, thus showing that larger, more accurate scales do indeed show greater differences in levels of expertise.
Opponents of grading also argue that grading systems cause students to place less emphasis on the course material, I believe this statement to be fallacious as well. If there were no evaluation for the material, would a student place more emphasis on the material without the incentive to show their aptitude in it? Without proof of a student’s proficiency in a given subject, what else is there to spur him to study it aside from his own interests? If the student had any interest in the subject to begin with, then how would grading them on it cause any detrimental effects? If anything, it would cause the student to learn more about the subject, not less.
Another common reason used in the argument to abolish grading is that the system promotes students to find weaknesses in it and create unhealthy habits. Since the grading system isn’t perfect, it will have it’s inadequacies and holes. This allows students to “beat the system” by earning a higher grade without actually qualifying for it, usually through plagiarism or other forms of cheating. Although it may be true, this is a fallacious method of attacking the argument, as the problem lies in the people who cheat, not the grading system itself. There will always be people trying to beat the system. We shouldn’t abolish federal laws simply because people can work their way around them, we should refine them and make it more difficult for people to do so. The same goes for the grading system and the educational structure. Instead of trying to get rid of grading, we should try to prevent students from cheating and unrightfully earning grades.
Even with all the imperfections in the system, grades are still necessary for the educational structure of society.
told you it was long. !
Grades are Necessary
Grades can have a potentially dangerous effect on students, causing them to give higher priority to the grade received on completing a course then the material learned during it. When a student values a higher grade more than the knowledge itself, unhealthy habits such as cheating and plagiarism could form. However, without some form of a grading system, educational structures as we know them couldn’t exist. There must be some form of gauging a student’s proficiency with a course’s material and comparing it to some standard. Without some form of gauging, how will anyone know how proficient a student with any given subject? Grading is a necessary part of society’s educational structure.
In order to understand the necessity for a grading system, we must first understand the nature of the entire educational structure. Let’s start off with a group of children; each one different from the next in terms of intelligence, interests, and learning capabilities. If we stick them all in the same classroom, they would all learn what their instructor teaches them based on their own unique capabilities. One group of students might learn slower then the rest and struggle through the class, while another will find the class too easy and unchallenging. A third group might already know what their instructor is teaching them. Now if these children were separated based on their capabilities, they would learn more efficiently. The students who were slower would all be in a class with an instructor going at a slower pace. The unchallenged students would be in a class where their instructor teaches more advanced and challenging material. The students who already know the material would be in a different class teaching entirely different material. This way, all the students are put in specialized classes that fit their unique characteristics more efficiently. In a real world example, the same thing occurs in elementary school when children are placed in Special Ed. classes or gifted classes or placed in a higher grade.
However, it would be impossible to determine which class fits each student without some sort of standard to measure each student’s characteristics. There would have to be some method of evaluating the students that would recognize the differences between them. This method of evaluating differences is not limited to elementary school systems; it’s essential to college admissions and employment as well. Universities and employers must differentiate between the candidates and determine which are most suited for their colleges and companies. Standardized tests and grades are simply useful evaluations of a person’s capabilities in certain areas of expertise. Several evaluations reflect more than the students alone, too. Teachers and professors are evaluated based on how well their students performed in their classes. High schools are evaluated based on how well their students do on state tests. Without these forms of standard evaluation, measuring the effectiveness of the instructors and schools would be extremely difficult. An interesting scenario involves home schooling, where a student learns everything based solely on his unique capabilities. Ideally, this form of learning would be the most efficient, as the student’s progress in learning would be evaluated by the teacher who literally taught them everything they know. But if that home schooled student wanted to enroll in a university or obtain an upstanding career, they would most likely have to take a standardized test to show their aptitude to their future employers. In all scenarios, some form of standard evaluation is necessary.
Some argue that grades should be abolished and replaced with testing evaluations. However, this replacement doesn’t abolish the grading system in itself, it only makes some modifications. Instead of students being evaluated on a scale from A to F, scales with numerical values are used. Either way, the students’ proficiency in the material is evaluated and given a defined score, whether it’s a letter, percentage, or numerical score. It’s important to note that pass/fail systems are no different. In fact, they are worse than letter grades because they use a much more basic scale. The student’s proficiency is either acceptable or unacceptable; there is no differentiating between students who are highly qualified from those who are barely qualified.
I must concede that grading systems with larger scales are more accurate at measuring a student’s proficiency when compared to smaller scales. That is why GPAs are now counted in 3 digit numbers like 3.74 instead of simple “A”s or “A-”s, they allow for the recognition of smaller differences. A student with a grade of 3.40 would be recognized as equally productive as another student with a 3.15 in the same class if their GPAs were converted to a letter grade, thus showing that larger, more accurate scales do indeed show greater differences in levels of expertise.
Opponents of grading also argue that grading systems cause students to place less emphasis on the course material, I believe this statement to be fallacious as well. If there were no evaluation for the material, would a student place more emphasis on the material without the incentive to show their aptitude in it? Without proof of a student’s proficiency in a given subject, what else is there to spur him to study it aside from his own interests? If the student had any interest in the subject to begin with, then how would grading them on it cause any detrimental effects? If anything, it would cause the student to learn more about the subject, not less.
Another common reason used in the argument to abolish grading is that the system promotes students to find weaknesses in it and create unhealthy habits. Since the grading system isn’t perfect, it will have it’s inadequacies and holes. This allows students to “beat the system” by earning a higher grade without actually qualifying for it, usually through plagiarism or other forms of cheating. Although it may be true, this is a fallacious method of attacking the argument, as the problem lies in the people who cheat, not the grading system itself. There will always be people trying to beat the system. We shouldn’t abolish federal laws simply because people can work their way around them, we should refine them and make it more difficult for people to do so. The same goes for the grading system and the educational structure. Instead of trying to get rid of grading, we should try to prevent students from cheating and unrightfully earning grades.
Even with all the imperfections in the system, grades are still necessary for the educational structure of society.
told you it was long. !