To Grade Or Not To Grade, That Is The Problem
– What’s your GPA (Grade Point Average)?
– Have you taken this course before? What did you get?
In his essay The Farce Called “Grading”, Arthur E. Lean questions the use of asking these kinds of questions.
Grades have become part of our lives as students. People need a grading system and “seem to assume it to be
necessary and intrinsic to the process of formal education”(Lean 131). He refers to the grade as “a symbol
purporting to express a measurement of academic achievement-an evaluation of the quality and quantity of
learning”(Lean 132). There are two main arguments Lean has suggested. First, there is an inconsistency from the
graders. Second, he sees the grading system as being unfair and even harmful for students’ attitudes toward
education. He points out that grading system should be eliminated. To backup the fact that many people are
challenging the necessity of the grading system, Lean provides two examples:
“A sustained effort should be made to throw out false inducements to learning. In one way or another most of these
refer to our obsession with grades?. As a system for evaluating attainment of broad educational aims, it remains a
failure. Few teachers have any systematic idea of how to grade fairly. Grading is also the chief villain behind the
scandal of college cheating,” said Louis T. Benezet (Lean 130).
“I have long ago reached the conclusion that the marking system itself is damaging in its impact on the education of
our children and youth, and that it should go the way of the hickory stick and dunce caps. It should be abandoned at
all levels of education,” said Ernest O. Melby (Lean 130).
I agree with Lean to some extent that there are some inconsistencies from the graders and perhaps some unfairness
occurred to many students. On the other hand, I am not sure that the system is totally harmful for students’ attitudes
toward education. Also, given the fact that the grading system is a very useful instrument for both motivating and
measuring students’ academic abilities, the system is still essential to be kept.
There is an inconsistency between markers for grading term papers or open questions that I agree with Lean. On his
example of several teachers marking the same paper, “invariably the assigned grades on the same theme ranged all
the way from A (excellent) to E (failure)” (Lean 132). Although many professors might say that point of view would
not be graded while they try not to be biasing, there is no guarantee that a professor would not give a lower mark to
a paper because s/he may disagree with some parts of the essay. As a former English class student in grade 12, I
notice that my teacher tended to be prejudicing on non-native English writers’ papers. The reason I said that was
because there is a big grade difference if our papers were marked by another who had not met the writers before. A
professional marker who was hired by the English department graded one of our term papers every term. Generally,
the non-native English writers received significantly higher marks than th!
ey do when our class teacher is marking. The average differential marks for non-native English are about ten
percent. As for native English writer, the differential marks are not very much.
It is true that the grading system can hardly be absolutely fair. Actually, “most teachers try to be fair and accurate in
their estimate” (Lean 133). One teacher who grades a work accurately doesn’t suggest that the other teachers would
do the same. However Lean claims that “all the time they know–at least, those who are honest with themselves
know-that they are attempting the impossible. No self-respecting teacher ever rests peacefully the night after turning
in a set of grades, for he knows that the “system” has made a charlatan of him and he goes to bed and hating himself
for it” (Lean 133). I don’t agree with the way Lean is questioning the teachers since their role is to act as a “judge”
on student’s work. There is a difference between being unfair and conforming with the system. A teacher who gives
the best suitable grade to an assignment is being fair. What Lean suggests is that teachers do not attempt to change
the grading system. Lean is being unfair to the teachers!
in this way because a teacher’s role is not to change the grading system in education. A teacher is similar to a court
judge whose role is to give the best decision on the case for everyone involved according to the law. We all know
that sometimes judges would find some laws have to be changed, but they would not change them when they are
judging their case. Teachers are the same as the judges. They may find some errors on the grading system, but as
long as it exists, they have to follow it. What all students want is to see assignments and exams to be mark fairly on
a consistent basis.
On the other hand, I agree that another unfairness appears from the teachers using grades “to discipline and punish”
students “for alleged wrongful conduct”. If grades are used to measure a student’s academic abilities, it is
unacceptable for teachers to use with the other ways. Going back to marking papers, a student may receive an F
because he was talking too much in the class and not because he wrote a poor paper. If teachers want to discipline
students, they can have a separate evaluation on student’s behavior. This kind of evaluation is being used widely by
places such as Hong Kong, where parents and employers can see a section called “student’s conduct” when they are
looking at a student’s transcript.
The grading system somehow does harm to students is sure. “Grading tends to stigmatize and punish the less able
student, who may be trying hard but, through no fault of his own, simply did not inherit much in the way of native
intelligence” (Lean 132). In addition, “once the grading system becomes established, students often shift their
motivations and values and begin to work for grades” (Lean 134). I have to agree with Lean that “with grades, we
teach them (students) cynicism, to say nothing of lying, cheating, competitive throat-cutting, and other reprehensible
practices largely” (Lean 133). The motivation of having high grades lets many students try to “beat the system” by
cheating if they cannot accomplish that through hard work or if they don’t have the abilities. By “beat the system”,
students often may think that cheating is the short cut for success. These students who may be called cheaters in
school may actually become criminals if they still believe cheating means !
prosperity. This kind of misinterpretation from some students because we don’t want the system to send to wrong
message to them.
Maybe a solution for unfairness or harm done by grading is to eliminate marks. Lean gives an example of Danish
High Schools and some other schools which abandoned the grading system. Employers are happy to see specific
reports about the students such as their intelligence, ability to work with others or honesty. What Lean does not
mention is that these evaluations may also be unfair because different teachers may have different opinions or points
of view about a same person. Also, it is proven that a great amount of students tends to become lazier when they
know that there are no marks on the work they do. In my writing class, for instance, when our teacher assigns
writing assignments for us, a student always asks the teacher “will this be graded?” Usually he will put a little or no
effort if the teacher says, “No, this is not going to be graded”. Also, Lean doesn’t give us any idea about how the
students do later after they graduated from the Danish High Schools compares to !
others who graduated from normal schools which have grading system. Therefore, removing the grading system
requires a much better alternative way, which still doesn’t exist so far. So far, I still agree using the grading system
is the most accurate way to measure a student’s academic abilities.
People never stop trying to find a relatively fair and objective grading system, although the grading system can
never be absolutely fair and harmless to students. More and more people realize that, in either percentage system or
the letter system, testing students by multiple choices test can be more fair and accurate than by problem tests. This
way, the test is standardized with teachers can find it easier to grade the tests. Since the answers can only be either
right or wrong, graders cannot bias to the students. Also, it is more statistical in which teachers can compare the test
results easily and see which parts of the tests that students are unable to do accurately. That is the way the ETS
(Educational Testing Services, Princeton), that has tests such as TOFEL, GRE and SAT, is doing. Those scores are
considered very important information for college admission both from US and from other schools all over the
world. Because the marking system can’t go wrong since it is obj!
ective for ETS, it is fair for most students. One draw back for having multiple choice tests is that they might not be
effective for many subjects such as English Literature when teachers want to know how well students can
understand the reading materials and be able to analyze them. Nevertheless, multiple choice tests are useful for
mathematical or scientific subjects since the tests are mostly right or wrong answers. Right now, some teachers find
using both multiple choice tests along with some open-ended questions for math and sciences courses. This way,
teachers can use the a few open-ended questions for some specific problems while the multiple-choice questions
enable them to grade the tests faster and more accurate.
Lean’s point of view is apparent: there are a lot of problems on our current grading system that should be
abandoned. However, in reality, no matter whether the grading system is fair or not, harmful or not, and essential or
not, the majority of schools including elementary schools, high schools and colleges would still keep the system
before anyone can come up a better one. Yes, changes have to be made in order to give students not just a
competitive but also a consistent environment for education. I am sure that schools are still making a lot of efforts to
accomplish that. As Hamlet said, “to be or not to be, that is your question”. If you are an employer, “would you
prefer, on the one hand, a thoughtful evaluation from adults who have observed young people closely over a period
of time, or on the other hand, an official piece of paper informing you about [the student’s academic records]?”
(Lean 134) Even though I always question the present grading system has being unfair t!
o students, I still support the system.
