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 pankajsapkal rated 8 months ago - An argument against ranking students in schools and colleges.
I fully support abolishing grading systems that pit one student against another.
But the paradigm of education as a competition is definitely a destructive idea - more so for young minds.
We live in an incredibly paradoxical world ...
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14 Reviews
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- DadamDugan rated 8 months ago
- "The paradox dissolves when we realize that we use grades not to make them learn, but to make their learning conform to a schedule, curriculum, and methodology imposed from without. Grades, or some other form or coercion or manipulation, are indeed necessary to make someone learn something or do something that they do not want to do. Perhaps society has different priorities for learning than the child has. Some have even suggested that the real curriculum in school isn't what's in the textbooks, the real curriculum is, as John Taylor Gatto puts it, "Confusion, class position, indifference, emotional dependency, intellectual dependency, provisional self-esteem, and that you can't hide." I would also add conformity, obedience, tolerance to boredom, and powerlessness."
- smhogan rated 8 months ago
- how grades kill the natural desire to learn
- JeraDarklighter rated 8 months ago
- This guy makes some valid points about the detrimental aspects of grading. I have to disagree a little bit tho... isn't one aspect of school to prepare you for having a job in "the real world"? If you have a job, there are consequences for not doing what you're told; you might not get paid as much because you didn't work as much, and you could even lose your job. In this light, grading makes more sense because it's a more realistic representation of what a person will face later.
(That doesn't mean I have to LIKE it... I'm personally a rebel and not a big fan of "the real world"... but that doesn't mean I don't have to deal with it.) Presently, a student can make judgment calls about the importance of his/her classwork... but part of that judgment takes into account that there will be negative consequences and tradeoffs for not doing assigned work.
I admit that grades AREN'T great on the natural desire to learn and can turn something that ought to be so positive into an onerous task. Giving students more choices about what they learn would help with this; it just doesn't seem to me that abolishing grades is the answer.
- angeleiz13 rated 8 months ago
- a very good point. grades do not always determine results. just because you make good grades doesn't mean you actually *learn* anything at all. i'm an honor student on paper. i make all A's in all my classes. i pass exams even when i don't study. i score higher than average on i.q tests. it has nothing to do with how intelligent i may or may not be. it's because the only thing i learned in grade school was how to take exams. i've learned how to take tests and reason out the appropriate answer without knowing why the answer is right. i can make an A in every class and if someone asks me a question i don't know the answer. it's strange how that works. in reality the grades have very little to do with anything. i've learned the most from my own research and my own desire to study what interests me. it's interesting to see kids will be experts in subjects that facinate them (a good argument for specialized/ magnet schools)and fall behind in the subjects that do nothing for them.
i think it would be facinating to experiment with a learning environment that doesn't focus on grades and tests scores. i can only wonder what would happen.
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