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All of this nonsense comes one root evil: giving publicly viewable grades for fundamentally in original work. Grades and homework should be for the student's pr

by hopler 8y ago

All of this nonsense comes one root evil: giving publicly viewable grades for fundamentally in original work. Grades and homework should be for the student's private benefit. The only public marks should be proctored exams for demonstrating skills, and whatever original work someone creates that has value that stands on its own outside he artificial school environment.

dahfizz 8y ago
That all depends on what you think school is for. I subscribe to the idea that school is for preparing people for society and provides a "great filter". Doing a task your superior asks of you and doing it well is arguably the most important thing school teaches you, with time and stress management being a close second. This is what grades at school measures. People love to talk about the virtue of being "well rounded" but the truth is that knowing bits of Shakespeare or knowing different types of Greek collumns doesn't benefit you as a person. All that information leaves your head pretty much immediately anyway. This is all especially true of high school. "Exams demonstrating skill" are not what matters to the people who look at your grades.
cortesoft 8y ago
A proctored exam can only really measure a few types of skills, and don't work very well for demonstrating skills learned in many classes. Take, for example, a class that is about learning to write effectively, which is clearly a valuable skill that adults need no matter what they do in life. Part of that skill is being able to construct, from scratch, an effective piece of writing in a length of time that is longer than a proctored exam session. You can only measure that skill by having them do that, and if they turn in work they have written prior, you aren't learning anything about their ability to write something effectively on demand. Research classes are similar; you can't demonstrate that you know how to do research well in a 3 hour exam. Programming classes, too; you can't measure the ability to create a large project in a 3 hour exam.
- hopler 8y ago
  I think a defense (oral examination) of the paper can cover that scenario.

by hopler 8y ago

dahfizz 8y ago

That all depends on what you think school is for. I subscribe to the idea that school is for preparing people for society and provides a "great filter". Doing a task your superior asks of you and doing it well is arguably the most important thing school teaches you, with time and stress management being a close second. This is what grades at school measures. People love to talk about the virtue of being "well rounded" but the truth is that knowing bits of Shakespeare or knowing different types of Greek collumns doesn't benefit you as a person. All that information leaves your head pretty much immediately anyway. This is all especially true of high school. "Exams demonstrating skill" are not what matters to the people who look at your grades.

cortesoft 8y ago

A proctored exam can only really measure a few types of skills, and don't work very well for demonstrating skills learned in many classes. Take, for example, a class that is about learning to write effectively, which is clearly a valuable skill that adults need no matter what they do in life. Part of that skill is being able to construct, from scratch, an effective piece of writing in a length of time that is longer than a proctored exam session. You can only measure that skill by having them do that, and if they turn in work they have written prior, you aren't learning anything about their ability to write something effectively on demand. Research classes are similar; you can't demonstrate that you know how to do research well in a 3 hour exam. Programming classes, too; you can't measure the ability to create a large project in a 3 hour exam.

hopler 8y ago
I think a defense (oral examination) of the paper can cover that scenario.