The Kohn
article we read for class this week was very interesting. I would have enjoyed
discussing it a little more in class so I will do it on here. Some very good
points were discussed in the article about the negative effects of grades on
students. Since all of you have read it I will try to avoid summarizing it.
I feel like
my own high school experience had many of the negative effects Kohn described
about grading students. I was only concerned about my grades, so I would
memorize the material that was going to be on the tests the night before, do
well on the test, and then forget all the material in just a few weeks. One of
the main arguments for grades is that it motivates students. I was only
motivated to get good grades not actually learn the material. I became an
expert at memorizing material for short periods of time. I also remember
comparing grades with my friends constantly. Some of my friends were
competitive to the extreme and would literally have fights over their grades. At
the time, I just thought it was annoying, but now I realize how destructive
that was for each of us.
About
halfway through college I started to realize just how obsessed people are with
grades. People were worrying about their grades constantly. It was rare to hear
someone talk about a subject without bringing up what grade they got on a
particular test or paper. It was really annoying when people would tell me all
about their grades and how they were doing in all their classes. Many times I
have told people that they are in college to learn material, not just to get
good grades. If they would just spend all the time that they worry and talk about
their grades studying then they would probably get better grades.
Since
grades have been a part of our schooling for such a long time, it will be hard
to remove them completely. However, the article did bring up some excellent strategies
that would probably help relieve students from the pressures of getting good grades.
If there is no grade put on individual assignments, then the first thing
students will look at is the comments made by the teacher, not the grade. This
seems like a simple strategy to get students to look at the material.
I remember a class that uniformly agreed that there would be no grades, only pass and fail. Honors would be given at the instructor's discretion, but failure occurred if you did not complete assignments. In the end only one Honor was given out and the class was enraged (I can honestly say I was not- got the H). There was a certain this class is secondary and unimportant. I struggle with this notion. My first B killed me (11th grade). Nice points, agree I would have liked to see more said.
ReplyDeleteI graduated from high school 19th out of 500 something students, but who cares? No one. If anything, it looks pathetic when I talk about it. It doesn't matter for the job I have now. My coworkers were probably mid-range students, but we all do our job well. I still have that competitive streak in me about performance. We also compared grades all the time and talked about class rank from the beginning of our freshman year. Now, in the workplace, I'm constantly comparing myself to other people's performance, but it doesn't really matter. What I should be focused on is my own performance and how it relates to my teaching and my classroom. We should collaborate as teachers to see which methods have worked better and to gain new ideas, but it should not be to see who outdid who. The effect grades have on us goes way beyond formal schooling.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how important the actual grade seems to be, more so than even the subject you are supposed to be learning. I earned decent grades in high school, but i did the same as you, Leslie, I never really learned the topic. In college later on, as an adult, I was able to spend more time concentrating on the subjects and ideas that I found interesting and subsquently earned decent grades while retaining some of the information.
ReplyDeleteI hope in the future we will move away from testing, analyzing and grading for the federal money and find a different way to rank schools and districts according to their worth and merit. Sometimes that seems like a pipe dream though.
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