Yale University was the first school to divide students’ grades into ranks. However, the letter system, which is used to this day, originated in 1897 at Mount Holyoke College. This system has been around for almost 130 years, and it’s presumed to be the most effective way to determine how much a student has learned by most people. But is it really as well-founded as it’s thought to be?
Many experts have proposed alternative solutions to grading, but they’ve had difficulty convincing people that anything needs to change. However, some educators are pushing to implement these in their schools. Blair High School teacher, Kyle Kerger, who teaches physics and physical science, is actively trying to change the grading system.
“High stakes tests aren’t super effective […] I try to find alternative things that I could provide a high number of points for,” Kerger said.
Perhaps our current system seems to be the easiest, simplest, or most efficient, but at what cost? Students’ mental health is declining due to the pressure of trying to keep their grades up. Everyone wants to have the best scores so they can look better compared to other students.
Some would argue that competition is needed in order to push students to learn and obtain good grades. Education shouldn’t be based around trying to be better than other students when we are all here for the same reason.
“In order for one to succeed, someone else has to inherently fail,” Kerger said. “This is not a competition, this is learning.”
Despite knowing that we’re all here with the same goal, we all strive to surpass our peers and to be exceptional. In reality, having better grades doesn’t truly show your intelligence. There’s really no way to determine that, so why do we let our grades affect us so much?
Checking your grades every minute to see if your quiz score has been put in yet, studying for hours to retake a test that you got a C on because you were too stressed; is this the fate of students in our education system? Either you dedicate every waking minute of your day to studying, practicing, and reviewing notes, just to get a letter on a page, or you can choose not to worry about it and be seen as unintelligent and irresponsible when you get back a page full of red marks.
As long as the current grading system is in use, there’s really nothing that we, as students, can do to reduce the pressure that grades can cause. All we can do is push for change.
