In The World We Live In

I think if I had read these articles a few years ago I might have completely agreed with what they were saying. I have frequently thought grades were a poor system to rank someone because they are not fair, at least not in the academic system. But then I read the articles and I did not like what they had to say.

First, as discussed last night, you cannot eliminate the grading system. So even if you go to Evergreen and you end up with an essay for a transcript you will still be ranked. This is how our graduate school and career system works. When you get into a career your salary becomes your ranking. Once again it's just a number that does not really tell you how you are doing something wrong, or how you can make it better. Could we reform the entire world? Maybe. But I think we would still have a type of ranking system it would just includ more evaluation. We like to know how we are doing in comparison with others. It's our nature and when we get a better grade or a better salary than someone that somehow makes us feel like we are better people.

Second, everyone has a different learning style. Emily or Cheyney mentioned that we need to have motivating factors to get us to do something. For many people those motivating factors come from grades. When you have someone in a position of authority tell you you are not measuring up it can spark some improvement. This may not work for all people, but why can't we accommodate different types of learners? We could keep grades for some people, give others more evaluation, and see who responds to what the best.

Third, these authors may be uncomfortable with authority, but they need to realize that someone has to fill that role. While students are not customers they are paying for something that is important to them. Some, not all, are finding a way to pay for their education and they expect to be paying for someone in a position of authority to give them guidance. Entirely student-led peer reviewing is not going to satisfy the requirement of having someone in a position of authority. Peer reviewing is great, but their peers may think something is great when in reality it's not. For example I had a student peer reviewing another student's paper today. I did not have a chance to read the paper but I know it was probably good because the writer is a strong writer. The reviewer wanted to know if a paragraph had too much opinion but when I looked it over it was a great paragraph that made a claim, used a quote to back up the claim, and then re-stated the claim and the conclusion that should be drawn from the evidence. There was no passive voice, the claims were not unfounded, and the quote was great. The structure worked well, and there was no "I believe" or "I hope" or "I think;" it was all based off the text. But the reviewer did not see that. He thought the paper was wrong and the claim had too much "opinion." I tried to help the reviewer see it as a good paragraph, but this this type of student is my worry. If these students are the evaluators how is anyone ever going to improve? In this example the paper would have become worse with the reviewer's suggestions.

Finally, I think we should try to encourage students to learn, but elminating grading completely may not accomplish this. There should be a good combination of evaluation and ultimately a grade. I will give you one last example. I had many opportunities for peer reviews in my English classes. I got some good feedback and some feedback I disregarded. I had teachers who gave me just a letter grade and little else. I had a teacher that everyone dreaded and avoided, and my first paper was one of my first B's ever. It was devastating. All of my peers had said I was great and my other teachers just gave me A's so I was confused. No one had really evaluated me as Elbow suggets. This professor had given me some comments, but upon further conferencing with her I was able to create that evaluation zone and by the end of the quarter I believe I was a much better writer. Her grade motivated me and the evaluation helped me know what to fix. Not everyone will work this way, but we need to take Elbow (disregard Baumrind because I did not like her) and find what works to help maximize our students' desires to learn and to maximize what they learn from our classes.