In my previous two posts, I established first that the grades assigned to students are subjective, if not entirely arbitrary; and second, that grades are pragmatically important because admissions, scholarships and jobs hinge on them. In summary, the system of grading is horribly screwed up, and we can’t just ignore it because careers, self-esteem and wheelbarrows of money depend on grades. This drew an interesting objection.
Jo writes: “So it is all bullshit. We know this. Give them what they want and move on to something better…”
I call this the “quityerbitchin” argument: yeah, you have a point, but unless you can tell us how to fix it, shut up already. With this I must agree, so let’s have at it then, shall we?
Two Alternatives to get the Bullshit out of Grading
If grades are subjective, but society pretends they’re objective, and this causes problems, we have two logical possibilities:
1. Embrace the Subjectivity of Evaluation
The first option is to simply accept that grading is subjective – to embrace the subjectivity of evaluation. While this may satisfy the social constructivists and interpretivists, it does cause some societal problems. If grades are just someone’s far-from-impartial opinion of a student, then basing job offers, admissions to schools and millions of dollars of scholarship money wholly or partially on grades smacks of incompetence and irresponsibility. Morality thus compels us to stop using grades as a primary selection criterion. However, it is presently unclear what could then serve as criteria on which to compare students.
While this option remains a possibility, it feels unsatisfying because one of the main functions of grading is to discriminate the good students from the bad.
2. Maximize Grade Objectivity
The other logical alternative is to try to make grades as objective as possible, with the understanding that a measure will always have some degree of error. This can be achieved by applying the same rigorous standard for instrument development that social scientists employ. Since a complete elucidation of the research surrounding the theory of measurement would occupy several volumes, I’ll stick to a few of the major points:
- The instructor must know what construct (e.g. knowledge of geography, or arithmetic proficiency) he or she is trying to measure. Said construct must be clearly and specifically defined.
- The constructs instructors are supposed to measure must be standardized nationally, or better, globally.
- Essays, projects, reports, papers, presentations, etc. must always be graded by several graders. Lack of agreement among graders indicates a problem with the assignment.
- “Objective” tests (multiple choice, etc.) must be pretested and validated. You have to test the test to make sure it measures what it’s supposed to measure and has no confusing questions.
- Students should be graded against a standard (not on a bell curve) and the standard must be a bona fide national, or preferably global, standard, designed by an objective process.
- The 1 to 100 grading scale must be replaced by a coarser scale (no larger than 1 to 5) wherein differences are meaningful enough to achieve reliable scoring.
- Due to the difficulty of creating good measures, schools should share tests that work.
Please note that I am not advocating an academic dystopia of endless public exams filled with countless multiple choice and fill-ins. I suspect that those sorts of tests are incapable of measuring most of the variables that grades should reflect. To me, this list screams out for problem-based learning and a revolution toward educational post-modernism, but that is a topic for another day.
And so dies the “quityerbitchin” argument.
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essay followup education |
Ah, the B+. The grade of those whose work had no flaws, but whom the teacher felt compelled to refuse an A anyways. How trite. Well, at least you realize that these posts aren’t an excuse for bad grades. Too bad you don’t see that they weren’t meant to be.
I feel bad for the author of these posts. Almost all of the criticism comes in the form of thinly veiled and unsupported ad hominum attacks. You would think that people would at least take the time to read the articles before posting rebuttals so stereotypically invalid that the author went to the trouble of explaining how and why they lack merit. Well, you might not, but I do. Did.
Oops, looks like I constructed my own ad hominum.
Amen to that
But..but…
How else can we manufacture emotionally, psychologically, and morally destitute slave labor? D:
…
Must…resist…Nazi jokes…
too… easy…..
Not being brutally murdered in a back alley is pretty important. It also has the same relevance to the topic in question as your response. Not being murdered is important. Your grades are important. This does not mean that successfully avoiding murder is an academic grading system whose constituent parts conform to the defining properties of the education system most prevalently used in the world today.
We do currently…
Heard of the SAT?
Plus sufficiently objective grading doesn’t necessitate limited choice answers, so your complaints are more descriptive of the current societal methods rather than those proposed.
Hmm… your grammar/spelling/content is terrible so you can’t be an English teacher, your logic is disgusting, so you can’t teach psychology or mathematics, you provide no evidence so you can’t teach science, I doubt Physical Education teachers have much in the way of trouble when it comes to grading stress (everybody gets an A, that cool with you guys?) so no dice there, you assume the author of this post exhibits poor performance in school despite no evidence in favor of this and much evidence to the contrary, so I doubt you’re a history teacher, you fail miserably at constructing an argument so not Political Science…
Ok, you stumped me what do you teach?
Did…
Did you even read the articles?
CAN you read the articles? I’m not sure you’re literate but if you can understand this I want you to know that there is help available to you. English as a Second Language classes will help you to learn to read and write fluently in the internet’s predominant language. If you live in the United Kingdom or the United States of America learning English will also drastically improve your employment prospects and allow you to experience fully the vibrant culture of your society. You don’t have to pretend anymore; learn English today!
And if by ‘improving’ you mean ‘making things even more of a recursive dystopia than they currently are’ then you’re damn right.
The wisdom of these replies is outstanding… really… I appreciate the effort Smile Bandit took to repudiate their silly arguments for this actually fair, objective blogger.
Wolfe stated his purpose of creating a more objective education system, as to more fairly, accurately assess students. He said it can’t be perfect, but as we do for things in science, we try to get as close as possible.
Many people assume because one’s lifespan contains subjective components, that our school system should be subjunctive. That is a terribly fallacy. Contrary to what people might think, the purpose of school is to have students learn material and be assessed on how well they learned it. Subjectivity impairs this process, plain and simple. School is not meant as a preparation for the rest of the life, get that preconceived notion out of your heads. School is so grossly different then what your life will probably be like afterward that it is laughable. By the way, some schools and some teachers actually are close to or becoming closer to specific ideals of a more objective school system as listed as above, not all schools are horrible.
Next fallacy I have noticed: life is not fair, why should school be?
Ohhhhh right! I forgot. if so much unfairness goes on after school, we should defend the unfairness in school, god forbid it becomes fair. Society might hope to achieve a more, fair world where things are less subjective, and by blindly defending our education system on the pretense that “life isn’t fair” you stand by a very ignorant viewpoint. If everybody went through a fair education system, that would reflect on society – although not completely nor quickly. “Bosses can screw you over in the real world, why shouldn’t they screw you over in school?” Um, maybe because we actually want to focus on learning material and making people leave high school less bitter.
I have a math teacher who clearly assigns completion homework that will be on very objective quizzes, we grade the quizzes in class and go further into each concept, and then we have a test summarizing the different concepts you learned from each quiz. Three opportunities to learn the concept, each presented in an objective, mathematical manner. If he absolutely hates you, you can still get an A in that class.
Jo: So it is all bullshit. We know this. Give them what they want and move on to something better…
Me: THAT’S WHAT THE NAZIS WANT YOU TO THINK
Jo: Wha..?
Me: Godwin’s Law, quityerbitchin over.