Good Students' Marks versus Real Knowledge - Research Paper Example

Higher Education Introduction Education starts at the time of birth and ends at the time of death. It makes the life of a person more meaningful. Knowledge is bursting from all corners of the world and it is not wise for a person to keep a blind eye towards acquiring it. Education is the only mean which helps a person to acquire knowledge and to help him in tackling the problems he might face in his life effectively. Education is a continuous process. It lasts till the end of life. It is not necessary that quality of education is same everywhere. It depends on how society or cultures help young students to achieve their educational goal. The outcomes of education are often measured using different types of assessment methods. In some societies, it is measured using the marks obtained by the students whereas in some other cultures or societies grades are used as the measuring tool for determining the outcomes of education. The grading system is almost the same in all the schools; but it depends on what the teachers expect from their students. Grading system is implemented using many internal and external assessment techniques. Projects and assignments are also widely used for granting grades to the students. If the work is not up to the level, the teachers expected, even the brilliant student may get poor grade. In other words, the grading system can cause more harm than the good, if not implemented properly. This paper briefly explains the grading system in higher education. Grading system in higher education Instead of value centered, problem centered or objective centered education, current education rotates around the grades. Students educational goal become centered on the grading system, and they don’t retain information needed for graduate school or entrance exam. In Robert Pirsig’s article On Teaching and Grades, he pointed out that students’ inability to provide personal experience or critically apply education to assignments remains to be the cause ineffective teaching practices in students’ early scholastic experiences. Pirsig says that teachers give bad grades to students who could not give them exactly what they were looking for. This means students don’t develop the ability needed to think for themselves in writing assignments or scientific exploration of theory and discovery. Students’ minds are melded to depend way too much on presented facts that they neglect to use facts to draw ideas of their own (Pirsig, 2008). Teachers perceive education as a single dimensional entity. They think that the students should function within the tight frame work of their syllabus or curriculum. They are really straight forward in allotting grades. They will look for the relevance of the content of the response provided by the students with respect to the assignment given. Only when the content was relevant, teachers will give good grade. If the content was irrelevant, they may not spend time for analyzing why the students have provided such irrelevant response. There is every chance that the student might not understand the question properly or misled by the assignment. But, for the teacher, such things are not important while allotting grades. Alfie Khon provided stack evidence on the detrimental effect of the grading system in stating “more striking, study after study has found that student—from elementary school to graduate school, and across cultures—demonstrate less interest in learning as result of being graded”. The above statement clearly shows that the current students focusing more on grades rather than the understanding, application or skill development objectives of education. While grades take the front seat, as colleges and other educational institutions have made high grades their standard, critical application take a back seat if they get a seat at all with today’s educational atmosphere. Students don’t want to be challenged because of grade. In Kohn’s article, Effects of Grading, he states that “students who cut corners may not be lazy so much as rational; they are adapting to an environment where good grades, not intellectual exploration, are what count”. It is a fact that, students in United States prefer to take easier classes, like music and psychology rather than take harder class, like calculus or chemistry. If they take classes like mathematics or chemistry, students prefer that teachers should provide formulas during tests; in addition students would rather have use of calculators be allowed than challenge themselves to commit knowledge to memory. It is a fact that because of these shortcuts employed by the students for getting better grades, makes them less competent in developing numerical ability and analytical skills.They are afraid to be challenged because they don’t want their grade point average to decrease which can result in the loss of their financial aid or scholarships. The students give more priority to grades because programs are more competitive now and a difference between a B and a C can mean whether or not that student is accepted into graduate school or not. The challenges that students face are endless; however, they commit enough effort to get the easy way out while still maintaining the grade point average needed for them to get accepted into an accredited school. Furthermore, the grades students received while enrolled means much more to them than what they actually learned in the course. The over emphasize given to grades in allotting, scholarships, admission to higher courses, and employment, forces the students to use all means, moral or immoral, to achieve grades at the expense of developing skills or critical thinking. One of the main concerns regarding to revising the grading system is that students need to be able to identify their level of comprehension and learning, or they should try harder to grasp the material. If a student makes a low grade then they know that they need to reach for a higher standard by studying more of the material to achieve the appropriate grade or standard of excellence in that subject matter. With grades, parents and educators are made aware of their child’s strengths and weakness so that the student’s educational goals and career paths may be adjusted. Students take easier courses to achieve higher grades because they are not prepared for college level material in high school. In Barack Obama’s article “Our Kids, Our Future” identifies the weakness of American education. Obama pointed out that “by twelfth grade, our children score lower on math and science tests than most other kids in the world; and we now have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation in the world” (199). Obama’s statement sums up the current situation in American education. Educational curriculum is revised periodically in order to ease out the efforts needed to the students in achieving better grades. But these educationalists neglect the fact that they are actually depriving the students the opportunities to develop some of the most important skills needed for a student in his future life. If a student has good grades, the parents and educators come to a conclusion that the student is learning better. They never know the exact development of their children based on the exact objectives of education by using these grades. Some students would just study the material to get good grades in their test and then forget about the material after the test, on the whole they are not really learning what they are suppose to. So far we have discussed the negatives of grading system. It should be remembered that the grading system has some positive aspects as well. The grading system provides incentive for students to work hard. It is a reward based system. Students feel good while getting good grades. Grades are given to motivate the students for further learning. Students can develop strong work ethics with grading systems because it gives them something to work toward. Naturally, individuals need challenge and incentive to promote progress and that is what the grading system does. Michael Moore’s article “Idiot Nation" establishes a clear depiction and makes a connection between grades as a reward based system by stating “Pizza Hut set up its “Book-it!” program to encourage children to read’ ‘when students meet the monthly reading goal, they are rewarded with a certificate for a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza" ( 87). Grades can be helpful to students; but it also means that a student has no motivation to work unless they are rewarded. Students should not be trained to learn by a reward because they ought to learn that, the objective of education in nothing but rewards. Students most often utilize the classes and systems that offer rewards. Again, the method (grade) used to assess education in colleges may not last long because once they leave the college, no such grade system is offered to them in their future educational career. Students need to be taught that the aim of education is acquiring knowledge, understanding of the acquired knowledge, apply the acquired knowledge in practical situations and to develop skills useful for future life. They should also realize that simply a degree or diploma might not help them in the practical life. In order to succeed in life practical skills are needed more than the diploma or degree. Such certificates have the value of paper alone, if the student failed to develop desired skills through the education. I think general education in college is a waste of time because for a Bachelor of chemistry or Mathematics student, classes about classical history, political science, or introduction to music are simply waste of time. In Richard Rodriquez article “what is an American education?” says “The members… of study commission on global education… recommend that the nation's students, from 1st grade to high school, confront the foreign, learn histories, values, tongues” (Rodriquez 59). It is a fact that the school students definitely need to know more about the general subjects. At the same time at the college level the students need more specialized topics rather than the general topics. For example, if a bachelor student of Chemistry may get good grades in general papers, but poor grades in his main subject Chemistry. While calculating the grade point averages (GPA), all the grades will be considered. So analysis of a student based on the GPA may not reflect his actual grade in the subject he specialized. Conclusions To conclude, the grading system serves as a distraction to the objective of learning for practical application. The teachers give grades according to their expectation from the students, which limits the students to contribute their ideas in the projects they are assigned. It also confines the students to take challenges; all they are worried about are their grades, because they want to get in good colleges. The main focus should be on identifying their level of comprehension and learning, so we have fewer drops out rates and can compete with other industrialized nations in the world. Grading system does work as rewarding system, but what is the point of having a reward system from which an individual does not learn anything. Read More