As a teacher I kind of hate grades.
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As a teacher I kind of hate grades.
Grades are correlated with the things people try to use them for: do you know the topic? Can you follow directions & manage your time? Are you prepared for more advanced material?
HOWEVER
It's very easy for a student to have poor grades because: they were sick, they moved, a teacher didn't like them,* and/or one of a dozen different problems caused by not having enough money.
*naturally I never want to be this teacher, but I've seen it happen
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As a teacher I kind of hate grades.
Grades are correlated with the things people try to use them for: do you know the topic? Can you follow directions & manage your time? Are you prepared for more advanced material?
HOWEVER
It's very easy for a student to have poor grades because: they were sick, they moved, a teacher didn't like them,* and/or one of a dozen different problems caused by not having enough money.
*naturally I never want to be this teacher, but I've seen it happen
@futurebird My experience with grade school was an extremely long time ago and in Serbia so probably doesn't directly relate here. But here's my view on grades anyway.
It just feels like sometimes the point of grading is to make it hard to score highly (bell curve and all that) rather than to describe knowledge gained.
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As a teacher I kind of hate grades.
Grades are correlated with the things people try to use them for: do you know the topic? Can you follow directions & manage your time? Are you prepared for more advanced material?
HOWEVER
It's very easy for a student to have poor grades because: they were sick, they moved, a teacher didn't like them,* and/or one of a dozen different problems caused by not having enough money.
*naturally I never want to be this teacher, but I've seen it happen
Likewise it's also easy and possible for a student to get good grades, but only with the help of half a dozen tutors and coaches and because their parents are plugged in to the details of academic culture.
If your grading system is competent this shouldn't mean the As are "fake" -- but, it inflates expectations for all of the students. That's just inevitable.
And I think that's the foundational issue. Education is to some degree a competition because we don't choose to educate everyone.
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Likewise it's also easy and possible for a student to get good grades, but only with the help of half a dozen tutors and coaches and because their parents are plugged in to the details of academic culture.
If your grading system is competent this shouldn't mean the As are "fake" -- but, it inflates expectations for all of the students. That's just inevitable.
And I think that's the foundational issue. Education is to some degree a competition because we don't choose to educate everyone.
So, even though I think it's unhealthy that students see grades as reflections of their self-worth. I can't say that grades aren't important and to just use them as feedback to decide what to study next or to decide if they maybe need to spend more time working through a subject at a slower pace.
Because grades are also a competition for limited resources. They do matter.
And they often matter *more* for the students with the fewest outside resources to help them navigate the system.
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As a teacher I kind of hate grades.
Grades are correlated with the things people try to use them for: do you know the topic? Can you follow directions & manage your time? Are you prepared for more advanced material?
HOWEVER
It's very easy for a student to have poor grades because: they were sick, they moved, a teacher didn't like them,* and/or one of a dozen different problems caused by not having enough money.
*naturally I never want to be this teacher, but I've seen it happen
@futurebird Oh God those days when offspring in school - one teacher told me offspring has ‘the look’ that means every teacher automatically singled them out as trouble. The face of an autistic kid silently and politely struggling to cope with regular classroom every day. Thank goodness it wasn’t every teacher, only(!) about half.
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Likewise it's also easy and possible for a student to get good grades, but only with the help of half a dozen tutors and coaches and because their parents are plugged in to the details of academic culture.
If your grading system is competent this shouldn't mean the As are "fake" -- but, it inflates expectations for all of the students. That's just inevitable.
And I think that's the foundational issue. Education is to some degree a competition because we don't choose to educate everyone.
@futurebird I used to teach an introduction to multimedia class. At the beginning of the term, I would have to warn everyone this was NOT a bird course, it was a lot of work and NOT easy, because so many people took it thinking it was an easy optional, and then got swamped.
It also didn't reward kids who did well academically without a lot of work. On the other hand, kids who were willing to do the work could excel where they might but otherwise.
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@futurebird I used to teach an introduction to multimedia class. At the beginning of the term, I would have to warn everyone this was NOT a bird course, it was a lot of work and NOT easy, because so many people took it thinking it was an easy optional, and then got swamped.
It also didn't reward kids who did well academically without a lot of work. On the other hand, kids who were willing to do the work could excel where they might but otherwise.
@futurebird I had parents come in and argue their A grade darling should not be failing, even though she was doing terribly, because her B grade friend was excelling (the kid was amazingly creative and worked her tail off).
I told them I couldn't talk about another kid's grades, went to the guidance counselor, and was told to boost their kid's grades because "she needed the marks". Sigh.
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As a teacher I kind of hate grades.
Grades are correlated with the things people try to use them for: do you know the topic? Can you follow directions & manage your time? Are you prepared for more advanced material?
HOWEVER
It's very easy for a student to have poor grades because: they were sick, they moved, a teacher didn't like them,* and/or one of a dozen different problems caused by not having enough money.
*naturally I never want to be this teacher, but I've seen it happen
@futurebird I grew up living adjacent to a poor neighborhood and got to see this firsthand. In elementary school my homeless classmates would show up by city-subsidized taxi. I had classmates who had to have their heads shaved by the school nurse because they couldn't shower enough to get rid of the head lice they'd picked up. In middle school I had a classmate fall asleep standing up because they spent the entire night moving apartments. I witnessed students getting arrested and even saw an officer use excessive force slamming a handcuffed kid into a wall for mouthing off. When these are the things going on in one's life how could a kid care about synonyms and antonyms or the historical allegories in Animal Farm or any other school subject for that matter
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@futurebird I had parents come in and argue their A grade darling should not be failing, even though she was doing terribly, because her B grade friend was excelling (the kid was amazingly creative and worked her tail off).
I told them I couldn't talk about another kid's grades, went to the guidance counselor, and was told to boost their kid's grades because "she needed the marks". Sigh.
That's extraordinarily inappropriate to bring up.
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@futurebird Oh God those days when offspring in school - one teacher told me offspring has ‘the look’ that means every teacher automatically singled them out as trouble. The face of an autistic kid silently and politely struggling to cope with regular classroom every day. Thank goodness it wasn’t every teacher, only(!) about half.
The WHAT?
"the look" ... that's not something I can even imagine noticing let alone commenting on. Wow.
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@futurebird My experience with grade school was an extremely long time ago and in Serbia so probably doesn't directly relate here. But here's my view on grades anyway.
It just feels like sometimes the point of grading is to make it hard to score highly (bell curve and all that) rather than to describe knowledge gained.
I'm very much against that. I would be delighted to give all of my students As if they all learned the material and I felt confident about sending them along to the next class to do well again. (that is no one would say "how the heck does this kid have an A in algebra? they can't do it at all?")
