Get rid of grades
- American Strength Class
- Jul 26, 2020
- 8 min read
Updated: Jan 1, 2024
Much has been written about the impact of grades on learning, and very little of it has been positive. The use of letter/ranking grades has been shown to lower intrinsic motivation, increase anxiety, and increase the odds that students will choose easier tasks over more challenging ones. And yet grades still are the driving motivational tool employed by almost every teacher I've ever met. Grading in P.E. is every bit as harmful as it is in an academic classroom, yet P.E. also has the greatest similarities with a functional model that works better. We are totally ignoring the latter point, and that's tragic.
But first, a quick review on the problems with grading in school. Here I can easily rely on the work already done by experts.
"My reasons for wanting to get rid of grades were numerous," writes author and professor Susan D. Blum in Inside Higher Ed (1). "I felt as if students are fixated on grades above all else. Most faculty conversations with students include some discussions of grades: 'What do you want? What do I have to do to get an A? How can I improve my grade? What are the criteria for grades?' And the professor takes on the role of a judge. It felt like there was no space for adventure, zest, risk -- or even for genuine learning. Everything focused on pleasing the professor."
"Grades did not enhance academic motivation," conclude the authors of one prominent study (2). "Instead, grades enhanced anxiety and avoidance of challenging courses."
"Much of what is prescribed in the name of 'assessing for learning' (and, for that matter, 'formative assessment') leaves me uneasy," writes author Alfie Kohn (3). "The recommended practices often seem prefabricated and mechanistic; the imperatives of data collection seem to upstage the children themselves and the goal of helping them become more enthusiastic about what they’re doing. Still, if it’s done only occasionally and with humility, I think it’s possible to assess for learning. But grading for learning is, to paraphrase a 1960’s-era slogan, rather like bombing for peace. Rating and ranking students (and their efforts to figure things out) is inherently counterproductive."
The typical defenses of grades are as follows, and we can quash them easily.
Defense 1: Students need grades in order to calculate G.P.A. and accommodate college admissions.
First, colleges are moving away from inherently flawed "objective" systems of evaluation already. The U.C. system is suspending its reliance on SAT/ACT scores for admissions (4) and many elite institutions have for years recommended face-to-face interviews as a way of evaluating students' strengths and personalities that don't show up on paper (5). Second, and perhaps even more importantly, grades are already trivial. I cannot emphasize this enough. GRADES MEAN NOTHING. We all knew even as kids that a grade from one teacher is likely to be wildly different from a grade another teacher might give for exactly the same work. Comparing the same letter grade between schools is even more of a fool's errand, and pretending that earning an A in my class requires the same effort, knowledge and ability as earning an A in a class across the country, taught by a coach I've never met, is pure fantasy. In an effort to fix this obvious problem, some states have adopted standards of learning. This only exacerbates the problem. It forces teachers to forge ahead with their instruction at a set pace regardless of whether that pace is too fast or too slow for their students and it creates a lock-step mentality toward education that discourages the innovation, exploration and experimentation that could really push our students forward.
Defense 2: Schools need grades to incentivize performance and to nudge unmotivated students toward graduation.
Granted, if a student wants to graduate from high school, and a certain G.P.A. is required to do it, grades will be a motivating factor for that individual. But in that case we have to wonder what our purpose is as educators. Is it to run a factory, stamping products (students) as "approved" once they turn 18? Most of us would espouse some version of the idea that our goal as educators is to help guide critical-thinkers toward a lifelong love of learning, pursuit of worthy challenges, and engaged citizenship. Considering the research that shows grades are counterproductive toward these more noble goals, why are we using them?
Defense 3: Schools need grades so parents and caregivers have an insight into their students' learning.
It's admirable to attempt to give parents and other stakeholders an insight into a child's learning, but a grade doesn't do that. Grades are a sledgehammer when we need a magnifying glass. Grades place students into hierarchies, they demean, and they are so broad and arbitrary as to be functionally useless. A conversation with a parent conveys 100x the information a grade does. All we have to do is spend a little more time to make that happen.
Physical education could offer respite from this toxic grading culture. Yet most P.E. teachers fall into the same trap as their classroom peers. We grade students based on whether they change clothes at the start of class, whether they sit on numbers to take roll, whether they participate (with little consideration given to actual effort exerted or progress made, by the way), and whether they follow directions. None of this incentivizes personal drive toward healthy lifestyles.
Last year, after beginning to listen to my own intuition about the negative impact of grades on student learning and development, I made a concerted effort not to focus on grades at all. On my first day with my students, I explicitly told them that I dislike grades and don't want them to be motivated by them. My mantra became: "Focus on being healthy, being a good person, and the grade will take care of itself." I wanted students to pursue their own goals the way our greatest professional athletes do, with vigor and persistence. Talent, I told them, was immaterial -- improvement and effort were the hallmarks of success.
Very few of my students were able to grasp these concepts. Inevitably, the conversation would shift back to something along the lines of, "Okay okay, but what do I need to do to pass your class?" In other words, they have been so well socialized to care only about their final grade that learning for learning's sake has become a foreign concept.
Imagine if we assigned grades to elite athletes. Certainly every NFL player would earn an A in anyone's version of a physical education class, right? But think how silly that would be. Imagine if their motivations were tied to a grade, instead of competing against themselves and relying on peers to push them to even greater heights. The high school equivalent is no less ridiculous. How many teachers complain about a student's lack of effort in an academic class while that same kid pushes himself to his limits on a football field or basketball court? If grades were a useful motivation, such a situation would be impossible, instead of common. Yet what do administrators do as a result of this scenario? They tie athletic participation to G.P.A., taking potentially the one joyous part of a student's day and tying it to drudgery and stress.
So what is the solution? Grades unfortunately aren't going away any time soon, so if you're a teacher you have to work around them. You can start by deemphasizing them as motivating factors in your class. If a student is sitting on a bench when the class is out for a run, your response shouldn't be to tell him or her that such behavior will negatively impact their grade; your response should be to initiate a conversation that attempts to understand why that student is having a bad day. Next, you can advocate for a change to grading policy at every turn. "There is nothing in the California Education Code which governs whether a class can be offered as credit/no credit, pass/fail or a modified A–D," for example, notes the California Department of Education (6).
Finally, we need a direction in which we should head. Physical education can lead the way, because professional sports have already adopted a model that leads to a more comprehensive understanding of an individual's strengths and areas for growth. Excepting the obvious problems with treating athletes like commodities by making this information public (which we should avoid for our students), the substance of the recruiting data for, say, a potential NFL draft pick illustrates the ways that grading has been replaced with substantive assessment.
Let's look at an evaluation of Tammorion Terry, a standout wide receiver at Florida State:
The 2021 wide receiver class may offer as many as six or seven first-round talents, and that includes Florida State’s Tamorrion Terry. The Seminoles have produced some receiver talent in recent years, and Terry may be the best of the bunch. The big receiver decided to return to school for the 2020 college season but could find himself in the first-round mix next April.... He is a big but speedy wide receiver that has massive upside when it comes to the next level....At 6’4, 205 lbs, Terry was only the 43rd-ranked receiver according to ESPN out of Turner County High School in Georgia. Despite not being the top-ranked prep pass catcher, Terry still received offers to play college football at big-time schools like Georgia, Florida, Auburn, Mississippi, and Florida State. In the end, Terry committed to play his college career for the Seminoles before the 2017 season. The talented young receiver was forced to redshirt during his freshman season before starting 11 out of 12 games in 2018. During the 2018 season, Terry showed some serious potential as he caught 35 passes for a new freshman record of 744 yards and seven touchdowns. For his efforts, Terry was named an honorable mention All-ACC performer and the team’s Offensive MVP. Terry returned for his redshirt-sophomore season in 2019, looking to improve his numbers and prove that he was one of the better offensive players in the Atlantic Coast Conference. He continued to show his big-play prowess on the way to 60 catches for 1,188 yards and nine touchdowns. Terry racked up six catches of 60 yards or more, which lead the entire country....Terry is not just a speed threat or jump ball target for the Seminoles, and they have taken advantage of his play-making ability by getting the ball to him on short throws and bubble screens. He has the potential to take these short throws the distance using his elite burst and run-after-the catch-ability....For all his great qualities, one of the biggest knocks on Terry’s game is his lack of ideal bulk at the position. However, it seems that he has taken steps to alleviate those concerns during this offseason. He can get bullied at times in the run game and against more physical corners on his routes, but it does not seem to affect his ability to get into the end zone. As a starter, he has been a consistent scoring threat for the Seminoles the past two seasons. Another knock on Terry is a lack of focus at times in the passing game. For all the spectacular runs and contested catches, he does seem to drop some very catchable balls. That mental lapse has been something that hurt his offense in the past. With a newfound sense of focus and direction on offense, he could put up more consistent and eye-opening numbers in 2020.
Objective data to support evaluation? Yep. Focus on strengths? Absolutely. Areas for growth? Identified.
This is one of the best athletes walking around any American campus right now; do we suspect his parent/coach/teacher/etc. would rather read the above assessment, or just know that he is an "A" student? Sure, it might take more time to write these narratives for our students, but imagine the time and energy saved by eliminating all the arbitrary rubrics and daily grades that dominate our time as teachers now. A few extra hours at the end of the year seems well worth the tradeoff.
One final question: we take professional sports seriously enough to adopt more comprehensive, helpful evaluations than letter grades. Do we take our students' education as seriously?
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