Marks/grades in school

[opus92fan]

As I progress though my schooling, I've begun to question a lot of the aspects of the structure of school. Lately, I've been really fed up with the concept of grades/marks. I feel it takes away from what school should really be about, which is learning.

• Students take notes in class and memorize seemingly mundane facts to get good marks on assessments. Most of the time, these students are not genuinely interested in the material being taught in class anyway, they are merely in the class because they "have to". Occasionally teachers will assign projects, but these are generally poorly done because of the lack of commitment of the students. In my opinion, memorization is not learning. The idea of having a mark/grade is, in essence, a form of bribery. If students work hard at memorizing mundane facts that they probably don't care about anyway, they can get a higher mark which will increase the chance of scholarship offers and univeristy acceptance. In a way, the mark system is the only thing keeping them in the class. If schools did not assign marks to classes (students would do assignments, projects, etc. and receive no mark, only comments) do you think you, or students in general, would still be interested in a class for the learning experience?
  
• Marks cause a need to make school a competitive experience. I don't think school should be a competition, it should be a learning experience. I know people who are determined to acheive a higher mark than everyone else (or a specific person/people) in their class/school and it's unhealthly. Some people cannot accept that they cannot acheive 100% on every assessment and that it is fine if they don't do as well sometimes. It doesn't matter whether someone got 70% or 90%, everyone is learning at their own pace. There is no need to be "better" than someone else. I find when people get super competitive about anything they dig themselves into a hole because they are so focussed on other people and not improving their own skills/abilities.
  
• Marks cause a need for perfectionism. As an IB student, I know what that's like. No matter how well you do, you can always do better. That is true, but can be unhealthy when taken to the extreme. As you acheive higher and higher marks, you have to work harder to acheive a higher mark than the previous mark. If a lower mark is acheived, I find students get very discouraged because it wasn't higher than what they've previously acheived. I'm guilty of this too. My average is very good for my standard and all my marks are in the high 80's and 90's, except for one in the 70's. I try really hard not to let it bug me and that most universities can look past one low mark and focus on the higher ones. Students need to learn that no human being is perfect and that there is nothing wrong with a 75%, I don't think marks convey this message but create a need for perfectionism.
  
• Students become a slave to their marks. When a teacher hands back an essay or project, the first place students look is the marking rubric. They generally ignore the teacher's comments and focus only on the mark. Ultimately, the teacher's comments are the most useful for improvement, the mark is just some arbitrary number. Students only want to improve their skills for the purpose of improving their mark, not for personal learning.
  
• Marks do not necessarily reinforce a work ethic. I find students who acheive high marks in most of their subjects have a feeling that they know everything. Definetly not true. There are many people that get through high school doing minimal work and acheving great marks. Because of the marks they acheive, they feel no need to work harder and develop a work ethic. Eventually, when they get to university, they cannot handle the rigor of the courses because they have not deveoped a work ethic. A teacher at my school once said that sometimes the students with marks in the 60's and 70's do better in university because they are more accepting of who they are; they don't need a 95 to feel good about themselves.
  

Most of my above points apply to regular courses. I believe the IB programme does a better job of showing that school is a learning experience, not a competition or quest for high marks. The rigor of the courses is one example, IB students have to be dedicated to the subject(s) they are taking and academically driven to do well. The IB assessments are difficult and nothing like the regular students would do in their classes. If an IB student takes the attitude of "IOC's are so pointless, we'll never do this in real life/university" then they, quite frankly, do not belong in IB. While the assessments of IB seem like a lot of work for nothing, I believe the skills used to complete them can be transferred to other areas of life after IB is done.

Those are the main points I wanted to share. Please share any other points or agruments against my points that you may have, I would be interested to know how other IB students feel about this subject. I would also be interested to know how marks/grades are treated in other countries besides Canada.

[Award Winning Boss]

So what would you do to change it?

I understand where you're coming from but I think you've written this after you got angry during school so you're in one of those moments that equal "School sucks! I'm going to explode the world and become a potato after 3 years!" type of thing.

So take a chill pill and relax a little bit.

I think you've contradicted yourself a little bit with the competition and lack of work ethic there. Just a little bit. If competition forces people to work harder but in turn they become lazy is a bit of an oxymoron to me.

Anyway, my view point is that competition within a class (obviously light hearted competition) is a fantastic thing. Especially when you help each other improve. Quite frankly it is enjoyable knowing you've done well, even if your motivation was telling your friend you did better than they did. We're all friends in the end unless one person ends up so far up their own ass I can't hear them talk anymore then its all ok.

Most school systems revolve around learning o called mundane facts. I do think it needs to be focused more on learning experience but what's the point of learning if they aren't facts. Unless your not an academic person in any sense of the word. Which is why in Germany you're allowed to go onto more technical work instead of university. I'd like that implemented more in England just because I'm fed up with people ruining the experience for other people.

To me the IB is better for learning rather than repeating facts (in comparison to the A level system from what I've seen)

and I'm either too lazy to finish this, I've forgotten what else I want to say or I've finished. Right now I have no idea which one it is.

[LMaxwell]

I don't think that testing is particularly bad in moderation, such as in the UK where exams are only done every 6 months(ish). Where I feel that tests do make students suffer is when they are done frequently. It doesn't allow students the time to fully understand a topic without the next test, or tests, coming up a few days later, creating an extremely stressful routine, to the point where a lot of students actually give up and fail to see that so-called 'light at the end of the tunnel'. Tests are definitely necessary though. I can't see your system of 'comments' working when it comes to University applications. The Universities will rely on a national or international test in order to pick the best students, and the comments system would be very biased and subjective. And anyway if the system was purely comments based rather than marks based, then the comments would simply take the place of the marks and the students would continue learning these mundane facts in order to achieve good comments. There is no way that students would be able to study subjects (particularly the sciences) without knowing these facts. Also, I agree on what AWB says, perhaps you should relax. School is what you make of it. If you don't want it to be a competitive experience, then ignore those who compete. Like-wise, if you don't think that learning should be about knowing mundane facts then learn your own way. We are all different and everyone will not have the same way of learning, even if you disagree with it.

[opus92fan]

Perhaps I'm merely wondering what school would be like if marks were not assigned to assessment. Assessment and learning would still occur, but the feedback from the teacher would be more oriented at the improvement of skills rather than how to acheive a higher grade, or if assessment focussed more on the application of facts learned in class, rather than memorization. My main point is students have really become a slave to their marks, would not assigning a number/letter grade to assessment help improve their attitude on learning, or would students find it useless work because there is no "reward"? (a mark in this case) I find a lot of [regular] students are not genuinely interested in their classes and are merely taking them because they need it for university or whatever other reason. [Regular] students don't generally take classes they don't need for personal interest. I got off topic a little bit, but my point is that it doesn't seem like all students appreciate learning, school is just a way to get a job. They only want to learn things pertinent to their career choice. Marks take away the appreciation of learning from what I've observed.

I wasn't writing this post out of anger, I'm sorry if it came across that way. It was one of my theoretical "what if" thoughts. As I mentioned in my post, I am starting to question many aspects of school and life in general. Not necessarily out of anger, just out of curiousity. Why do we do it that way? What if we did it another way?

When I was referring to the laziness I was referring to those people who can pull off decent marks in school without much effort. At the same time, there are also those who need to work really hard to pass a class. Ultimately, it is the ones who worked really hard to pass the class that will be more successful in life because they built up a work ethic, whereas the others had a superficial sense of mastery. Of course, there are also those students who work very hard and acheive very high marks, who tend to be perfectionists and get upset over a 95%. I hope that clarifies and makes my post sound less contradictory.

[kiwi.at.heart]

I think the reason things work as they are is that the whole point of high school, or at least the last couple of years is to prepare people for higher education. If you look at your primary years, there was never any refined grades, the focus was the learning experience because at that age, that was what worked. But as you enter high school, though you probably aren't socially mature enough to enter the adult world, you still probably have enough education (e.g. maths, writing, reading skills) for some of the professions that don't require university. This is why when we enter high school, especially the later years everything seems to be so grade based, because thats how its going to work for a good part of the rest of our lives. We go to university where we are graded and no one cares if you are learning at a different speed to others. When you do well at uni, you will then go into work where your boss is going to be more interested in results you can produce rather than how hard you tried.

And the mundane facts point, while i think its relevant, I also think that most of the better education systems are shutting it out. Look at maths. A very few amount of people are actually ever going to use it after high school, however in many countries around the world it is compulsory throughout high school. Why? Because it the thought process required rather than just the content that they want us to learn. And its the same in most subjects, though we will never have to save a life by being able to identify the major symbols in a novel, its the skills to look at something and identify and analyse importance that are the main objective that will somehow help us in life. Even in one of the most fact remembering subject, biology, IB requires you to do data analysis in exams to incorporate higher level thinking.

While the system isn't perfect, it works for its purpose and that really is the most important thing.

Edited January 13, 2012 by kiwi.at.heart

[Vincent1416]

I really agree with you. You indeed pointed out really true facts about what grades are. Are grades really useless though? No. Grades is the only thing teachers can look at to know your performances. Also, we live in a world where a lot of what we simply memorize but do not understand is applicable, making this grade business less of a big deal. Teachers cannot just look at your participation in class, hence this justification of grades.

Award Winning Boss mentions a solution. Well here is the key solution here; make use of grades. Instead of studying/ memorizing for the test, do the work for yourself. You must learn understanding that you are the one gaining from this. When you achieve this, you can use tests for yourself to know your own performance, and rather than sulking over your bad grades and beat yourself being a slave of grades, use it correct your mistakes.

Like kiwi.at.heart mentioned, grades really serve their purposes, so deal with it and make the best use of it

[Costello]

I really don't think that grades are one bit as necessary as people here seem to think. Yes, I agree that they are important when it comes to university applications, but besides that, there's not really any need to grade students. The only grades I put on my UCAS form were my IB grades, which makes all the other grades I got before my 2 years of IB pretty useless. The only reason for them was so that teachers can "blackmail" us into studying, or so that parents can have a reason to feel good about themselves and brag to other parents about how well their kids are doing. I also agree that especially at younger age pretty much the only motivation students have for studying is to feel superior (or not to feel inferior) towards their classmates, and to get compliments from their parents/teachers. I think you will find very few young students who study because they genuinely understand the benefits of education. I think that grading shouldn't be done unless it's necessary and even then it should be done externally and the student should be the only one informed about his grade (and not parents, unless the student decides to tell them). I also don't think competition is necessary, but maybe thats just me. I feel the same way about my grades regardless of what other people in my class got, because my classmates don't influence my goals. But maybe thats just me.

[jess1ca]

I would give you a long reply, but my IOC is tomorrow and that would be unwise. But I definitely agree with you. I've thought about this issue many times, ever since I was a child.

"I would love this subject if we weren't being graded" etc etc.

Sometimes people just want to do whatever gives them the higher mark. Picking the easiest courses, taking shortcuts, rather than focusing on becoming an expert in whatever they learn.

On the other hand, if we weren't being graded, a lot of people wouldn't work at all. It is still a motivation factor.

I wonder if there is a better way...

I might go into education one day... I think about this stuff a lot. Waste my not-so-spare time reading books on educational philosophies.

[Razzker]

Everyone needs a balance. It's not just completely one way or the other. That's the point of the IB, right? To educate young people in a balanced way? That's why we have stuff like CAS in addition to our subjects, and all sorts of other elements too.

That said, I do know some people who treat CAS as an academic subject. An extreme point of view, in my opinion.