Every six weeks students and teachers and coaches and parents all dance around grades. The impact of a grade can be great (determining progress in extra-curricular activities, for instance), but what does the grade tell us about a given student’s success during that 6 weeks, or his progress?
As feedback, I think it is an understatement to say that grades are flawed. Some might argue that they are actually harmful, especially at the elementary level, and the longer I teach the more I agree with that camp. I do, of course, see a grade’s utility. Even more, I see a grade’s attractiveness as a low-effort method of assessing for those outside the classroom. Given daily observation of a student’s work effort, work product, and work progress; a teacher does not necessarily need such a quick and low-information indicator. And so… we rankle during the grade dance.
Students, for the most part, do not care about how they are assessed. Many want to feel successful, and they are trained to associate high grades with success. Students also respond well to positive feedback, which is absolutely vital in the teaching process, but because of the implications grades can have on their extra-curricular life, grades remain the foremost indicator of success to that student. Bizarrely, students also feel that grades are an issue of negotiation, specifically with regard to “make-up” work or “extra credit”, which are bald-faced attempts to raise grades. There is a disconnect there, between valuing what a grade means but also acknowledging that it is, at its essence, something highly flexible.
