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Grades are some of the dumbest things in modern education. Besides the reasons listed in TFA, they suffer from several other problems: - They are generally hig

by kqr 5y ago

Grades are some of the dumbest things in modern education. Besides the reasons listed in TFA, they suffer from several other problems: - They are generally highly subjective and really measure how well the student manages to say what the teacher wants to hear. - The above leads to a further problem: they discourage critical thinking, by rewarding students that don't even attempt to step out of line. - On the subject of stepping out of line, how does one learn, again? Oh, right, by trying difficult things and failing at them. Grades discourage this. - Grades further emphasise a strict hierarchy of authority that is an outdated way to organise thinking. (Some schools are improving this by allowing students to grade teachers, but I'm not sure adding more bureaucracy is worth it.) - External motivation (bonuses, grades, gold stars, ranking) etc. generally leads to short bursts of effort but are surprisingly bad motivators for continual effort. - External motivators like grades often lead to competitive behaviour as well, rather than collaborative. We need less competition and more collaboration in society and particularly in the workplace. (Though this is bordering on another criticism of how education is set up: why in the hell would it be considered cheating to collaborate?!) - All of the above was great when we needed to "educate" non-thinking factory workers for whom showing up and obeying is the number one priority. We know better by now, and our schools ought to reflect that.

kqr 5y ago
And, perhaps most critically, Grades are generally just statistical noise. Yes, there are some three-sigma outliers who are consistently better or worse than the group, and these deserve special attention -- but productive attention, not just letter grades! For the vast majority of students, there is little to no signal in the grades. The grades people get are generally better attributed to the abilities of the teacher than the students. As Deming would say, grades (like "employee of the month" type things) are a pure lottery disguised as merit, which is an awful thing to subject humans to. ---- If I were a teacher, I would do what Deming did: give everyone a passing grade on sight. Then I would randomly sample assignments to see what the general quality of them is. If someone is performing significantly worse or better than the group, that requires a root cause analysis to see what's up. If the entire group is performing worse than desired, that's not the student's faults, but mine. So then I'd root cause myself. ---- My children are not yet of school age, but I sincerely hope I can strike a deal with their teachers about grades when it's time for that. I feel awful thinking about the fact that I might have to subject them to grading. Not because they are special snowflakes, but because it kills the human spirit.

by kqr 5y ago

kqr 5y ago

And, perhaps most critically, Grades are generally just statistical noise. Yes, there are some three-sigma outliers who are consistently better or worse than the group, and these deserve special attention -- but productive attention, not just letter grades! For the vast majority of students, there is little to no signal in the grades. The grades people get are generally better attributed to the abilities of the teacher than the students. As Deming would say, grades (like "employee of the month" type things) are a pure lottery disguised as merit, which is an awful thing to subject humans to. ---- If I were a teacher, I would do what Deming did: give everyone a passing grade on sight. Then I would randomly sample assignments to see what the general quality of them is. If someone is performing significantly worse or better than the group, that requires a root cause analysis to see what's up. If the entire group is performing worse than desired, that's not the student's faults, but mine. So then I'd root cause myself. ---- My children are not yet of school age, but I sincerely hope I can strike a deal with their teachers about grades when it's time for that. I feel awful thinking about the fact that I might have to subject them to grading. Not because they are special snowflakes, but because it kills the human spirit.