Grading - Part 4
The first three parts of this essay have provided an overview of the different ways in which the practice of grading not only fails to provide any general, positive, constructive assistance to the process of learning but, in fact, tends to undermine and corrupt that process. However, if grading has no proven, reliable, valid heuristic impact on learning and education, then, an obvious question is: why does it exist?
There are at least nine or ten basic motivations which keep 'grading' in place. These revolve around issues of: abuse, obfuscation, ignorance, fear, control, money, ego, punishment, mistrust, and a hatred of real democracy.
The comments below address such issues in no particular order of importance, since all of the foregoing factors play their roles - both individually and collectively - in helping to maintain the status quo. Moreover, while a great deal more could be said, and has been said, in relation to the following remarks, only something of the flavor of each facet will be touched upon in this brief review of what is a multi-dish, full course, and very disagreeable meal.
Those who work with issues of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse have long been aware of the very strong relationship which exists between those who have been abused as children and those who, themselves, grow up to become abusive toward others. Applied to the context of education, the sad fact is, many people who 'learned' within abusive systems of education, have mastered their lessons all to well, and, now, inflict upon vulnerable people what was forced upon the former when they were younger.
All too many of those who control the corridors of power in relation to schools - from: government officials, to: superintendents or commissioners of education, principals, teachers, school boards, media representatives, and PTA groups were brought up in a zero-sum game in which their were winners and losers, and one of the ways in which one distinguished between the two was through grades. Good grades, supposedly, meant one was: 'smart', 'successful', 'motivated', 'disciplined', 'responsible', 'competent', 'leadership-material', and 'serious' about life, whereas poor grades, supposedly, meant one was: 'slow', 'unsuccessful', 'unmotivated', 'undisciplined', 'irresponsible, 'incompetent', 'not worthy of leadership', and not 'serious' about life.
The focus on results, competition, winning, success, and rewards became so great, that somewhere along the line a lot of these people misplaced their humanity. Issues of kindness, reciprocity, generosity, community, love, respect, compassion, humility, gratitude, harmony, balance, selflessness, and service to others were all seen as interfering with, or obstacles to, becoming triumphant in the zero-sum game they were being forced to play by the educational system within which they were raised, and, as a result, when they grew up, the only thing they knew how to do - they only thing which they had been taught - was how to be inhumane to others and force upon succeeding generations what had been forced upon previous generations.
Grading has nothing to do with learning or creating conditions which are conducive to learning. It flies in the face of more than 60 years of discoveries within cognitive psychology, not to mention a great deal of clinical experience both within, and outside of, school settings - but, oddly enough, the people who are the educated 'elite' continue to chose to ignore what is inconsistent with that to which they have been habituated through years of terrorists raids into their psyches by the school system - and true to the Stockholm Syndrome, they have identified with those who have held their humanity hostage through the practice of, among other things, grading.
Approached from another perspective, the use of grading soothes, strokes, and nurtures the egos of those who believe their divinely ordained mission is, on the one hand, to reward those who are subservient to the former's 'calling' to fill the empty receptacles of human ignorance with the pearls of an educator's self-proclaimed wisdom, while, on the other hand, chastising and casting down into the depths of hell, those who would resist what, clearly, is for the good of humanity, truth, justice, and democracy. The youth who receives good grades is the one who has proven her or his 'worth' in this most vital 'Rite of Passage' in which one drinks from the Cup of Accumulated Wisdom and regurgitates (quite socially acceptable in this context) precisely what has been given, whereas the child that has received bad grades also has revealed his or her true nature by refusing to drink or spitting out - not socially acceptable, or drinking a little too slowly for the educator's liking, that which is being offered.
Showing little evidence of humility, filled with the arrogance of an ego satisfied with its self and what it believes it knows or understands, and untroubled by the presumption that one has a right, within democracy, to force arbitrarily and artificially chosen tidbits of information down the mental throats of another human being, the educator feels justified in labeling people for life with the scarlet letters of education. The nature of an ego's narcissistic tendencies is to look for the mirrors that reflect what it wishes to see - namely, itself, and this is what grading accomplishes. It identifies and reflects what the grader finds most pleasing about life - his or her own predilections, interests, biases, prejudices, and inclinations.
Naturally, those who fail to pay proper homage to an educator's ego, must suffer the consequences. They must be punished, humiliated, embarrassed, mocked, ridiculed - in other words, these poor excuses for human beings who, for whatever reason, have failed to stroke, soothe, accommodate, and bow down to the educator's ego must be: de-graded ... not just temporarily, but for ever.
Surely, the punishment fits the crime. To borrow, somewhat, from Billy Congreve: 'Hell hath no fury like that of an ego scorned'.
The blood sport of grading uses classical and operant modalities of conditioning, shaping, bending, spindling, folding, and mutilating the souls and psyches of children in order to exert several kinds of control. First, due to the fact that many of these educators do not know - because they have never learned or been taught - how to enter into a process of reciprocity and equitableness with an inquiring mind, they need some form of threat to keep the hostile natives - toward which the educator has imperialistic designs - in check.
If you don't learn what I want you to learn, when I want you to learn it, and in the way that I want you to learn it, and with the attitude with which I want you to learn it, then, not only am I going to be very upset, but I'm going to hurt you - not physically, but emotionally and in terms of life opportunities. You see, I have real power, and I have been licensed to wield it as I deem fit. This is my own little fiefdom, and you are my vassals, and if you revolt, or try to undermine my authority, or resist my rule, or seek your freedom, then, I will use my grading mace to teach you something about the realities of life.
Think the foregoing is an exercise in hyperbole? There are very few schools, at any level of education, which do not subscribe to its central principles - either overtly or implicitly. However, they tend to use civilized, sophisticated, and learned words like: 'discipline', 'order', 'necessity', 'fair' 'rational', 'enlightened', 'responsible', 'realistic' - but beneath the surface of civility lies an authoritarian heart and mind set that uses punishment and negative reward contingencies to control behavior.
The second aspect by which grades are used to control students is rooted in fear, mistrust, as well as considerable ignorance. Unfortunately, it is also opposed to the spirit of democracy.
Far too many educators are fearful of what would happen if students were really encouraged to develop skills in critical inquiry that: involved asking pointed and probing questions of themselves, governments, history, science, religion, or society; or, generated solutions to problems that were inconsistent with the vested interests of money, commerce, or politics; or, sought to find constructive alternatives to the cancer of mindless, insipid, decaying conformity and uniformity; or, which brought educators to task for the way they often sacrifice students on the altars of the career interests of people who, supposedly, have been entrusted with enhancing the welfare of youth. Far too many of these same educators do not trust young people to even have an inclination to want to be: willing to learn, genuinely curious, reflective, properly skeptical, tolerant, open to possibilities, as well as committed seekers after truth, meaning, purpose, fairness, identity, peace, love, and happiness.
Democracy does not thrive in a sterile soil of conformity and strict crop control, but through the cross-pollination of diversity. Democracy was intended as a process by which differences of perspective, understanding, values, and beliefs were exchanged by means of a continuing, rationally critical discussion whose underlying intent was the search for ways to, as far as possible, harmoniously balance the interests, rights, duties, and needs of both individuals and the collective - and included in this discussion were explorations of what might be meant by ideas such as: 'understanding'; 'values'; 'as far as possible'; 'rationally critical'; 'discussion'; 'balance'; 'harmoniously'; 'needs'; 'rights'; 'duties', and 'interests'.
If an educator wants to help young people learn about the real nature of democracy, then, this process begins not in a textbook or with a visit to the state capital, but in the school system. If an educator is afraid of open-ended exploration and discussion, then, that person is an advocate of neither genuine education nor democracy. If an educator does not trust young people to take the foregoing sorts of issues seriously, then, how can such an individual trust anyone to take such matters seriously - and, more importantly, why should any student trust such an individual?
The rights of students to: freedom of speech and thought, privacy, protection against unreasonable search, freedom from inhumane punishment, as well as to equal protection, under the law, in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness are trampled on, again and again, within schools. The fact that the law often upholds such practices only goes to prove that Justice Holmes was correct - 'the law is an ass', and, in a self-serving manner, all too many judges and lawyers misinterpret their own braying, as enlightened comments on law and democracy.
But, of course, students are not actually citizens are they? Like the Greeks, schools think of students to be similar to slaves, who are not really entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship, and, of course, the Greek tradition is part of the inherited wisdom which we wish to pass on to these lowly wretches and future peons of society.
If an educator believes that she or he has all the answers, then, they should be running for 'emperor of the universe' and not waste precious time on something so mundane and trivial as a search for truth, justice, meaning, purpose, and identity. And, if an educator is willing to acknowledge that he or she does not have all the answers, then the nature of the learning exchange should be one of sharing, mutual respect, and reciprocity - not one of handing down the 'Book of Life' from Mount Olympus.
Educators use the threat of grades to curtail, if not eliminate altogether, genuine exploration, discussion, and critical analysis. Educators use the threat of grades to condition students to accept the frequently artificial, arbitrary, limited, and limiting modus operandi of schooling as it is, and has been practised, for some time now.
Educators use the threat of grades to hide the fact that many of them are afraid to stop grading because of the career ramifications it would have for educators. Consequently, students are sacrificed on behalf of those fears, even though a career in education supposedly is about helping, not sacrificing, students. In doing so, educators become the Judas goats that lead their flocks to emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual slaughter by continuing to wear the bell of grading and insisting that students follow that bell wherever it leads.
Some educators might respond to the foregoing by saying that the cessation of grading is not practical because the whole system needs the process of grading in order for it to work properly. In truth, this is not so, and it is not so in a number of respects.
If grading stopped today, society would not come to a halt. Higher education would merely place more weight on the results of various tests such as SAT or ACT, or any of the other standardized vehicles, along with interviews, recommendations, portfolios, life experience, and so on. Similarly, business - through its human resources departments or the assessments of supervisors, would develop, if necessary, additional instruments to determine suitability for employment in a given company.
It is a well-established fact that there is no correlation between GPA or standardized tests and life success. Furthermore, so much corruption has crept into the grading process - both through grade inflation, as well as through student cheating, that the grading process is largely bankrupt as a valid, reliable, fair, and accurate reflection of either learning or learning ability.
In addition, businesses are often commenting on how schools (both high schools, as well as colleges and universities) don't teach students the things that permit students to hit the floor running in the world of business. So, why not discontinue a practice - namely, grading - which, by general consensus, has neither predictive nor legitimate heuristic value?
Colleges, universities, graduate schools, and businesses should busy themselves with something other than interfering with, and undermining, the learning process in elementary, middle, and high schools by means of the former's incessant push for grading and accountability. If they are worried about what children are learning, then let them devise their own system for selecting candidates independent of grades, and, in the process, leave public and private learning contexts alone.
Indeed, admission into higher education or acceptance into a business should be based on a person's actual, current competence, knowledge, understanding, abilities, and performance - and grades do not provide an accurate reflection of any of this. How can anyone possibly know what a person really can do or is about by looking at a grade since the latter carries absolutely no historical context with it?
Who were the teachers? What kind of people were these teachers? Were they competent communicators? How well did they explain ideas? How logical and well-executed were the development of topics? Were there any conflicts between teacher and student?What textbooks were used? Were they any good? What facts, methods, ideas, processes, purposes, issues, problems, and questions were emphasized by the teacher or the textbooks? How relevant, arbitrary, or artificial was the material to be learned? What was the nature of the process used to evaluate performance? How subjective, valid, reliable, or fair was it? How much bias and prejudice entered into the evaluation process? What problems existed in the various classes, and how did they affect the conditions of learning? What problems existed in the school and how did these affect the process of learning?
No college, university, graduate school, or business is prepared to take the time, or make the effort, or expend the resources that are necessary to explore the foregoing themes with any degree of thoroughness or rigor. Consequently, there is no justifiable reason for them to even look at grades because they have absolutely no idea about what sort of history and circumstances surround those grades, and, therefore, they cannot have any real insight into what a person actually knows, understands, or can do by looking at such grades.
Like the Wizard of Oz, they all wish to give the impression that they really know what they are doing behind the curtain of obfuscation that they place between their private understanding of such matters (which is almost none) and their public pronouncements. In truth, however, looking at grades is little different than staring at tea leaves at the bottom of a cup and trying to use the latter to assess the potential, ability, competence, character, creativity, and understanding of an individual.
Elementary, middle, and high school systems - whether public or private - should stop being pimps for business and higher education. The obligation of the former should be to students and to learning, and not to satisfying the insatiable appetites of business and higher education for warm, supple minds, bodies, and hearts which already have been conditioned to being morally and intellectually compromised by the process of grading.
So, who is to be held accountable for what goes on in schools? Well, who else could it be but students and teachers?
However, unless you give students, in consultation with their parents and other resource people, the freedom to act in their own interests, as any consumer should have the right to do, then, the whole issue of accountability becomes an exercise in futility and obfuscation. The future potential, opportunity, competence, and happiness of students should be the primary focus here, and no one - not government, the courts, business, higher education, nor even parents have the right to deny students a substantial say in determining what does, or does not, work with respect to their capacity and ability to learn.
If students are not learning in conjunction with a particular teacher or schooling system, then, they should have the option of changing how they go about the process of acquiring an education - a potential for change that needs to be free of threats, labels, penalties, or punishments. And, believe it or not, the best judges of whether or not real learning is going on, or whether they understand what they are doing, or whether what they are learning is coherent, interesting, challenging, and worth while, are, quite often, the students themselves - if only we would learn to listen to them.
Moreover, when student and teacher are freed from the way in which grading disrupts and corrupts the learning relationship, they are likely to give an honest assessment of: what each feels is going on, where problems may exist; or, where they would like, or need, to go in future learning contexts. Testing can help inform this process of evaluation, but grading does nothing but muddy the waters.
Parents, politicians, educators, and business people can all waste as much time, energy, talent, and resources as they like in arguing about what grades do and don't mean, or about how to improve grades, or how to make grades a function of standardized testing, or about funding this or that project which is designed to give us a quantifiable figure that we can use as an index for learning. However, the truth of the matter is this: we do not have a means of providing scientific, mathematical or computational analysis which is capable, in any standard, universal, fair, reliable, valid, and unbiased manner, of evaluating, real learning - learning which takes into account individual differences involving the learning, understanding, and application of: critical inquiry, paradigm shifts, praxis, hermeneutical reflection, character formation, creativity, the ability to ask timely and probing questions, or the development of an appreciation for, and commitment to: truth, purpose, justice, equality, freedom, democratic principles, community, identity, or service to others. Anyone who tells you differently is lying, delusional, or believes that doing well on Jeopardy is equivalent to being educated.
The continuation of grading serves the money game by obfuscating a number of important issues. Instead of concentrating on students as primary consumers of, and participants in, the learning process, arguments about grading and accountability are used to give the appearance of a commitment to the former, when, in truth, everyone involved in those arguments is merely trying to get money, in one way or another, by perpetuating the grading process and treating it as if it were really what learning was all about, when, in truth, grading has nothing whatsoever to do with assisting children to learn.
However, as long as grading exists, then, schools, teachers, school boards, media representatives, parents, and politicians have a convenient means of diverting attention away from the real issues of learning, while, all the time, being able to fool themselves and/or others that the grading discussion is about student learning. Endless reams of figures, test results, statistical analyses, interpretations, claims, counter-claims, reports, columns, and articles can be paraded into the public forum like body counts in the Vietnam war, and, meanwhile, learning has become MIA.
People who seek to obfuscate their aspirations for money, control, power, and abusive behavior under the guise of an altruistic concern with student learning should be ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and, in fact, quite, the opposite, may be the case since many such individuals tend to be extremely proud of their self-proclaimed sense of being champions of 'real education' - something they, very likely, have never been involved in, either within or outside, of school ... indeed, they tend to fear 'real education' and try everything in their power to make sure it doesn't happen.
Conservatively speaking, 50-60 % of problems - with few, if any, adverse consequences for learning - currently occurring through the process of schooling would disappear if the practice of grading were discarded (and another 15-20% of these schooling problems would be resolved - again, which would not hurt, but enhance, the learning process - if compulsory homework were abandoned). And, for those people who insist on becoming overwrought about whether the absence of grades would be detrimental to the preparation of students for higher education and/or the world of commerce, why not give students an opportunity to show that they could, and would, thrive in such an atmosphere, and, thereby, refute what is nothing but idle speculation concerning that (i.e., what would happen if grading were discontinued?) for which, in any event, there is no hard, reliable, valid, longitudinal evidence capable of plausibly supporting a negative prognosis.
Students are well aware that the future is waiting for them. They know that, sooner or later, they must find a way to earn a living and pay their own way in life. They understand that they must be able to demonstrate competence in order to gain admission into higher education.
A healthy sense of responsibility is developed over a period of time. It cannot be forced upon an individual, for not only are various kinds of pathology more likely to arise out of such a context of stress, coercion and control, but the sort of learning which is deep-rooted and long-lasting is functionally dependent on an individual's readiness to learn - and such readiness can never be compelled, rushed, or demanded. In fact, like a wine advertisement of a few years ago, there can be 'no learning before its time'.
Most students, given an opportunity, will, eventually, acquire a constructive sense of responsibility on their own. Grading interferes with the development of this healthy sense of responsibility.
To be sure, there may be those who, for a variety of reasons, will not take full advantage of the opportunity to learn during elementary and/or high school years even though the practice of grading is not present. Either these people are not, yet, ready to learn the lessons of responsibility, or they may never be ready to do so, but, in either case, sacrificing the good of the many, for the folly of the few, is just not good pedagogical practice.
Another positive possibility which might arise out of an abandonment of the practice of grading is a leveling of the playing field for those who, under the present manner of conducting education, are disadvantaged in any number of ways due to socio-economic status, geographical region, race, ethnicity, religion, and so on. More specifically, if one made actual ability, knowledge, and understanding the focus for gaining entry into higher education and the business world, rather than grading systems which are, to borrow from Churchill, a "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma", then, where a person went to school, or the status of that school, or whether the school was public or private, home based or chartered, religious or secular, then, the grades, or concomitant degree/certificates, that were received would no longer be of relevance - rather, only what a person could actively demonstrate in the way of learning, knowledge, and understanding would be germane.
Indeed, if one not only got rid of grading but, as well, high school diplomas and certificates, and made learning the only issue, students could take whatever entrance tests for higher education or business that had been devised by the latter, and do so in an anonymous fashion without being burdened by the sort of social, economic, and historical baggage which may be, and often is, used to pre-judge or bias an evaluation of a student's potential and capacity to be successful in either higher learning or commerce. Yet, as long as grading and diplomas exist, then, all too many people will try to use these factors to work the system to their advantage, quite independently of considerations of actual learning, knowledge, competence and understanding.
Moreover, if these people really believe that their particular private and public schools deliver a superior education, then, they should be quite comfortable in meeting 'whomever' on the sort of level playing field outlined above, without feeling they have to hang on to a security blanket of socio-economic advantage, status, and prestige. If, on the other hand, such people are not at all confident in letting go of advantages which have nothing to do with ability, intelligence, talent, or potential, then, their reluctance merely lends proof to the fact that socio-economic advantage is what decides matters rather than learning, knowledge and understanding.
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