I’m excited about the general education reform that’s going on at Baker. Hopefully, it will make education here more trans-disciplinary, well-rounded and meaningful, shifting the focus to learning instead of checklists of requirements.
An underlying issue is going unquestioned, however.
Another factor is hindering the creation of an intellectual paradise at Baker.
The real problem is grades.
A couple of my professors last semester shared with the class their ideas on grade reform. Both proposed a system of uncertain grades and indefinite requirements.
They wanted to bring competition into the academic arena, encouraging students to work harder and learn more.
If students did not know what it would take to get an A (or B or D), the professors argued, they would do more than necessary to be safe and catch their excelling peers.
A system like this might work.
This does not mean, however, that it would be effective.
Such a system would not really help achieve the university’s ultimate goal: educating students and encouraging learning.
My dislike for a policy of capitalistic competition does not mean that I support some sort of communistic grade-sharing.
What I’m thinking about is more like anarchy.
Grade anarchy, classroom anarchy.
Laissez-faire scoring, red ink hands off.
Well, not quite that far. The red ink can stay.
So can the grades (in an informal capacity) because they’re intended to be valuable learning tools.
Grades show students how well they understand a concept or how effectively they explained an idea or argued a point.
There’s no way to learn without correction. But one can learn quite well without dwelling on scores and letters.
The problem isn’t exactly grades themselves, but what grades do.
They set up requirements – milestones of “success.”
Achieving these signposts, however, does not always indicate mastery, nor does the failure to do so indicate failure to learn the material.
Grades beget teaching to the test and – even worse – learning to the test.
Testing, like grades, is not necessarily bad, but the pressure to do well on a test to achieve a certain score does little for anyone.
School should not be about rote memorization or writing papers on topics you dislike.
It should be about inquiry and discussion, discovering issues and facts that intrigue you and introducing you to new ideas and perspectives that change your life or change your mind.
Perhaps my problem is that I haven’t yet forgotten the romantic picture I had of college when I came to tour the campus four years ago. “You’ll love college,” my teachers and parents and older acquaintances told me.
And I do.
But I was really disappointed when I got here to discover that college was not what I had imagined.
People skipped classes, didn’t do their homework, came unprepared to class and sat silently in the corner.
Many people didn’t care to learn.
Abolishing a traditional system of grades isn’t going to make everyone start caring.
In fact, it would make some care less by failing to hold them formally accountable for their education.
If one doesn’t care to learn, though, that’s his or her problem.
For those who do want to learn, allowing them to get past an obsession with grades would let them relax and focus on what they find interesting.
If taught well, the class itself would provide the necessary motivation to keep students on task and learning.
In high school, my AP English teacher told us we could have whatever grade we wanted.
There would be no required quizzes and no tally of contributions to class discussion.
Yet almost everyone read and almost everyone spoke up because the class atmosphere held students accountable.
It was embarrassing to be asked a simple question you couldn’t answer, and we all valued the discussions that resulted when everyone was prepared for class.
If you want your students to learn, make them see why they should.
School is about increasing knowledge and awakening curiosity, not completing a certain quantity of work or doing things one doesn’t care about in order to compete with others.
There's no point in upping the ante if everyone at the table's only bluffing. <br/>&#160;