Recently, there was an article in the New York Times on the rampant cheating in public schools, colleges and universities today, and how students will do anything to get high grades.
But based on my own experiences from elementary through graduate school, and much thought, I am convinced that grades are a dangerous and pernicious thing, and should be abolished. Or at least, they should not be nearly as important in college,graduate admissions, and that grade point average does not necessarily indicate how good a student is.
The premise of grades is false, and the notion that the harder you work, the higher your grades will be is not necessarily true. Grades do not necessarily indicate how intelligent a student is, how much academic ability he or she has, or REAL knowledge, nor do they show creativity and original thinking.
Often, they show nothing but how many correct answers a student was able to memorize and parrot back on tests. I suppose that a certain amount of rote memorization is necessary in school, but grades should not have to follow students for years and jeopordize their chances of college or graduate admission. Just because student X has a higher GPA than student Y does not necessarily mean that student X is more deserving of admsiion to a prestigious or not so prestigious school.
And to have a certain GPA as a prerequisite for admission is wrong.
Some students may be very deserving of admission, yet not have high enough grades. And grade inflation, which is not uncommon, makes it easy for students who are mediocre or worse to have what looks likes impressive grades.
And not only does grade inflation exist, but its exact opposite happens,too. In courses where there are no cut and dried correct answers, grading is often highly arbitrary and subjective. Sometimes, a student can be very bright and hard working, yet teachers or professors can show extremely poor judgement in grading, and give low grades for outstanding work.
In such courses, grading is often a crap shoot. Yet if the teacher shows poor judgement in grading, the STUDENT is blamed.
A student may have absolutely no control over the grade he or she gets in a course, and work extremely hard, yet receive only a lousy C, or even a D, while other students in the class who put no more than a tiny fraction of the effort in,and have minimal academic ability will get As and Bs.
What should we do ? Instead of assigning students grades which could jeopordize their academic futire, and thus chances for success in life, have teachers evaluate their students work instead, and point out where their work could be improved and also tell them when their work is good.
Admission to college,universities, graduate,law and medical school would be based on tests of a student's knowledge and ability in their proposed areas of study, rather than assigned grades,as well as written essays and recommendations, which are already factors in admission.
Or if grades are retained, allow for students whose grades are not as high as they actually deserved to be admitted if they genuinely show the merit and have exceptional academic ability.
I have found in my own experiences in school that the way some teachers and professors grade can be the equivalent in the academic world of medical malpractice. Can you imagine doctors blaming their ownpatients for THEIR blunders ? This can happen in schools.
