abolishing grades
As our country moves into the twenty-first century, it must closely evaluate its current system of doing things. Where better to start looking than at its future, today's students? However, an evaluation of today's students would probably not be positive. This is because students fear of failure and fear of getting bad grades. A simple solution to this problem would be to eliminate grades altogether and to reinstate the power of learning to gain knowledge and character, not to get a letter grade. Abolishing grades would work toward eliminating the apathy and lack of learning currently displayed by most students. For a long time, achieving good grades and nothing more, has been the ultimate goal in a student's academic life. This is a standard that was set centuries ago by "grownups" who needed a way of ranking students based solely on letters or numbers. Individuality and creativity were pushed aside so colleges, universities, graduate schools and employers would be able to judge their candidates. In the text, Celebrating Diversity, a short segment called, " Add Teaching To High-Risk Jobs," writes, "You can have an 'A'." Students' minds are generally focused on getting an "A," so they usually don't think abou
The abolishing of student grades would allow students to break free from conformity. Eliminating grades would allow students to actually learn instead of just memorizing facts for a test and soon forgetting the information completely. "Good" students in a grade-based society tend to conform to just getting good grades, not truly learning, in order to have a chance at a better future. Many times there are classes that students are interested in that would be really challenging that they simply would not take because of the risk of getting a bad grade, even the dreaded "F." These classes might teach students some very valuable lessons. They will never find out as long as grades still exist. In our current system, students need very high grades to be accepted to graduate school and eventually to obtain a prestigious job. This is the case with many students. They fear the threat of a bad grade, so they forego a potentially valuable experience. In a short segment called Emancipated, a young Filipino girl states, "I managed to maintain my 3.9 grade point average and gain entrance to the University of California, Berkeley." Students worry about their grades in order to be accepted in better institutions. "O barely got enough sleep, and my social life suffered severely." this young Filipino girl underwent grief in order to satisfy the grading system. "...I feel like I didn't just graduate --I survived." The pressures that each student goes through for the sake of an "A," does not fully ab
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Approximate Word count = 1016
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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