To Grade Or Not To Grade, That Is The Problem Essays (1786 words)

To Grade or Not to Grade, That is the Problem - What's your GPA (Grade Point Average)? - Have you taken this course before? What did you get? In his essay The Farce Called "Grading", Arthur E. Lean questions the use of asking these kinds of questions. Grades have become part of our lives as students. People need a grading system and "seem to assume it to be necessary and intrinsic to the process of formal education"(Lean 131). He refers to the grade as "a symbol purporting to express a measurement of academic achievement-an evaluation of the quality and quantity of learning"(Lean 132). There are two main arguments Lean has suggested. First, there is an inconsistency from the graders. Second, he sees the grading system as being unfair and even harmful for students' attitudes toward education. He points out that grading system should be eliminated. To backup the fact that many people are challenging the necessity of the grading system, Lean provides two examples: "A sustained effort should be made to throw out false inducements to learning. In one way or another most of these refer to our obsession with grades?. As a system for evaluating attainment of broad educational aims, it remains a failure. Few teachers have any systematic idea of how to grade fairly. Grading is also the chief villain behind the scandal of college cheating," said Louis T. Benezet (Lean 130). "I have long ago reached the conclusion that the marking system itself is damaging in its impact on the education of our children and youth, and that it should go the way of the hickory stick and dunce caps. It should be abandoned at all levels of education," said Ernest O. Melby (Lean 130). I agree with Lean to some extent that there are some inconsistencies from the graders and perhaps some unfairness occurred to many students. On the other hand, I am not sure that the system is totally harmful for students' attitudes toward education. Also, given the fact that the grading system is a very useful instrument for both motivating and measuring students' academic abilities, the system is still essential to be kept. There is an inconsistency between markers for grading term papers or open questions that I agree with Lean. On his example of several teachers marking the same paper, "invariably the assigned grades on the same theme ranged all the way from A (excellent) to E (failure)" (Lean 132). Although many professors might say that point of view would not be graded while they try not to be biasing, there is no guarantee that a professor would not give a lower mark to a paper because s/he may disagree with some parts of the essay. As a former English class student in grade 12, I notice that my teacher tended to be prejudicing on non-native English writers' papers. The reason I said that was because there is a big grade difference if our papers were marked by another who had not met the writers before. A professional marker who was hired by the English department graded one of our term papers every term. Generally, the non-native English writers received significantly higher marks than th! ey do when our class teacher is marking. The average differential marks for non-native English are about ten percent. As for native English writer, the differential marks are not very much. It is true that the grading system can hardly be absolutely fair. Actually, "most teachers try to be fair and accurate in their estimate" (Lean 133). One teacher who grades a work accurately doesn't suggest that the other teachers would do the same. However Lean claims that "all the time they know--at least, those who are honest with themselves know-that they are attempting the impossible. No self-respecting teacher ever rests peacefully the night after turning in a set of grades, for he knows that the "system" has made a charlatan of him and he goes to bed and hating himself for it" (Lean 133). I don't agree with the way Lean is questioning the teachers since their role is to act as a "judge" on student's work. There is a difference between being unfair and conforming with the system. A teacher who gives the best suitable grade to an assignment is being fair. What Lean suggests is that teachers do not attempt to change the grading system. Lean is being unfair to the teachers! in this way because a teacher's