| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 11:27:26 AM | I just read an article in my local newspaper where the writer said he read an article just before Christmas that stated, starting in the new year, certain schools in Saskatoon (for those of you who are from outside of Canada, that's a city in the province of Saskatchewan) are adopting a "no one fails" philosophy, as they intend to abandon actually grading students. Fearful a low mark may lead to hurt feelings, the school system has devised this "no more hurt feelings" assessment protocol. A student in English literature whose written assignment equals the quality of Charles****ns will be told he/she has passed. A student turning in a written assignment of quality mirroring the skills of the average Jerry Springer guest will be told they have also passed.
I haven't googled to find if this is in fact the case (but it wouldn't surprise me in the least in this day and age), but was interested in your thoughts if such IS the case. | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 11:39:24 AM | I actually read an article that argued against grading in schools all together. They listed 5 main reasons, which I can't remember them all, but to me, the most compelling argument against grading in schools is that it doesn't really measure what a student has learned in school. The only thing that is measured by grading is how well a student is able to regurgitate information and how well a student is able to give a teacher what they want, which I fully agree with.
Another argument that I personally have against grades that goes along with the above mentioned argument is that some people don't perform well on tests, for a large variety of reasons, be it anxiety, disability, or something else. Yes, there are those who don't perform well on test because they are stupid. However, and I use myself as a prime example, are intelligent and know the information however because of whatever reason (in my case disability) the grades received don't reflect their knowledge and intelligence in the subject. | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 12:13:27 PM | I'm all for eliminating grades, or at least failing grades.
I'm one who DOES perform well on tests, and all through school kept feeling like I was getting an unfair advantage just because I took tests well. That trait got me scholarships and made my life a whole lot easier than that of classmates who comprehended just as well but for one reason or another didn't test out as well.
My college had no failing grades. If you failed a course, that course just disappeared off your transcript. You didn't get credit for it, of course, but you also weren't penalized for not performing well in it. I like that system, even though I only needed it once.
And I can't help but mention, at the ripe middle age of 50, that not once since I graduated from college has anyone asked what my grade point average was. I'm asked if I have a degree, and occasionally asked to prove it. Once or twice I've been asked to document specific courses I've taken, but no one ever asked how I did in those classes.
Finally, I think for most of us the skills we value the most, the ones we feel have served us best in this world, are not things we have ever been graded on. Anyone agree?
Dave | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 12:32:46 PM | I took a second to google and won't copy and paste to here but if you feel like reading the article, google Nutana Collegiate or Saskatoon Schools - no grades, and you should come up with some of the articles.
It appears that students would still technically fail courses, but instead of grades below 50 per cent they would receive "incomplete" or "no mark" on their report card and transcript. So, either way, if you fail, you fail - you just don't know how badly you failed the subject, nor will anyone else. So, I suppose if you got 49% or 25% the incentive is that you didn't cut the mustard and would have to take either the test or the course again until you got at least 50%.
I hated taking tests as well but that was usually because I didn't study or pay too much attention in class, aside from the fact that the pressure of the test would likely cause me to be nervous in and of itself.
Apparently the school system's reasoning is so the students don't "feel bad". But doesn't a person feel bad strictly by virtue of not passing the test period, no matter what the percentage score was on it? As much as I hated the tests themselves, I'd sooner have a personal barometer to know just "how" poorly I did and in what areas.
Also, if you aren't given a grade if you are below 50%, why should others who score above 50% be given a score - shouldn't the reasoning then be that all they need to know is that they passed? | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 12:36:32 PM | the real world just isnt like that , and are we doing kids any favours by setting unrealistic expectations? i know a number of kids who have beeen "nursed through " school by the no fail idea.....which already happens to a degree.......
and they are truly shocked to find that employers and others who select by standard are not impressed....
my daughter was a very high acheiver through school, (and still is) and was actually asked why she presented work of such a high standard when she was going to pass anyway!!!!!!
i really believe we have a responsibilty to prepare kids for the real world- and thats not about what grade you got, but it is about if you cant make the grade , they wont employ you | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 2:00:07 PM | My thoughts go back and forth on this.
If our system of evaluation gives us grades that don't mean anything -- which seems to be the case -- then we should come up with a better system. But to adopt a "no one fails" philosophy to prevent hurt feelings is asinine. This idea that failure is unacceptable, driving one to redefine failure as some kind of success, seems more pathetic to me than just failing at something and trying again. Failure is a part of life. Do we suffer hurt and shame and humiliation from it? Yes, and these are great teachers. Yet we avoid these feelings at all costs. We seem to have lost all touch with reality and live in a sentimental la la world where fear, pain and suffering are thought to be the greatest of all evils. They're not. They are just not. | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 2:04:05 PM | Grading is the least useful part of feedback and SOMETIMES it is definitely more constructive to give detailed feedback that does not include a grade.
Everyone has opportunities to improve their work: the student who gets 90% will best be able to use a mix of praise and pointers to move forwards -- the same balance as the student who has struggled to achieve 15%. This kind of approach enables the least able and the gifted students to continue to make progress at their own best rate, rather than holding back the gifted students with "well you got an A so you've done with that now and you have nothing more to learn or improve upon in that area" and disheartening the most vulnerable students with a mountain of things they have done wrong.
I am fortunate to be working in a pass/fail system. The "pass" standard is incredibly high and the students resubmit their work until they are able to attain that standard. The strong students complete the work more quickly, in less steps/revisions and are able to move on; the weaker students take a long time to build up the skills to complete the work to the same standard but at the end of the day they have achieved the same standard as the other students (it's rather similar to driving lessons, really). Rather than get a 40% "pass" they get the opportunity to complete something that is "100%" and this can lead to a pride in their work that they've never known before -- and as a result a growing confidence that helps them to progress more easily than when they considered themselves only capable of "40% at best" -- which is how many students do label themselves.
Sometimes grading has a function -- often, however, more detailed individual feedback can be more supportive to learners at both ends of the scale and grades can actually be a distraction. It should be noted that giving detailed feedback (my feedback to students can often contain a similar number of words to the essay they wrote) is a lot of work, far more than writing a grade on the paper. But I know they read it, value it and use it. | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 2:07:37 PM | | According to the late George Carlin it might be part of the new mentality "there is no loser, just last winner". | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 4:12:18 PM | No grades? Everyone passes? The world will be full of people who write like this (from another forum):
i know **** my grandpa was the same way you say yours was.but i don't know i have never seen him get ill with his grandkid's but maybe he douse.and his is a little younger than mine are.my promblobm is i can't stand for anyone to be ill with tham.he is alway's telling me that we rasied our childern and now it was out time for each other.so maybe he don't really understand how i am with my grandchildern thank you.
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 4:52:37 PM | Here's the comments from the writer of the commentary in the local paper I spoke of...(note he left out the fact about the 50% and under grading) just more food for thought:
"Why do we have a Mona Lisa? Why do we have a Sistine Chapel ceiling, a statue of David, the song 'White christmas', the poetry of Browining, the collected works of Mark Twain or the philosophies of Kant and Plato?
The answer should be obvious - individuals saw the beauty, the genius of these masterpieces and worked to ensure these items were not lost in the endless corridors of time.
The same motivation applies in the world of sports. Teams, be they hockey, baseball or football, spend enormous resources to track an endless array of statistics. Again the question is why, and agian the answer is to record individual achievements that have surpassed the results of any other player in the same position and sport.
Last month the spire was added to the Burj Dubai Tower in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), making it the tallest building in the world. The previous record holder was the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia, and before that, there was the World Trade Center, the Chrysler Building and others, leading all the way back to the Great Pyramids of Giza. The Burj Dubai Tower has only a few years to celebrate, however, as another project in the UAE will surpass it in height by 2011. Two years after that, the title will transfer to a new project underway in Abu Dhabi.
Science is no different. A hundred years ago powered air flights lasted 30 seconds and travelled about 200 feet in distance. Today spacecraft hurtle through the heavens in journeys measured in billions of kilometres. We recorded the first man in space, the first man on the moon and wonder who will be the first human on Mars. In all fields, individual accomplishments are recorded and preserved to recognize these achievements and provide a goal for future individuals to first equal and then better. This is the story of mankind, for better or for worse, based on ancient emotions hardwired into our biology a billion years ago.
(this is where I partially quoted from): I make mention of the above accomplishments because just before Christmans, I read an article that stated, starting in the new year, certain schools in Saskatoon will adopt a 'no one fails' philosphy, as they intend to abandon actually grading students. Fearful a low mark may lead to hurt feelings, the school system has devised this 'no mroe hurt feelings' assessment protocol. A student in English literature whose written assignment equals the quality of Charles****ns will be told he/she has passed. A student turning in a written assignment of quality mirroring the skills of the everage 'Jerry Sspringer' guest will be told they have also passed. Imagine if we applied this same logic to the world of medicine. A doctor worries a patient with high blood pressure could easily have his/her feelings upset, so this doctor simply notes the individual's blood pressure 'has passed.' I wonder if these same teachers in Saskatoon would feel equally confident with a doctor who graduated first in his/her class at Harvard as a doctor who passed medicine at the University of Good Feelings.
It's little wonder that students subjected to twelve years of fantasy education enter the real world, only to be startled because this same real world insists on individual achievement and effort. North American public education is based on theories that have been proven foolish at best and dangerous at worst. It's time to get back to realty." | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 5:58:09 PM | My thoughts are that this will undoubtedly hurt these kids in future academic pursuits.
My GF is the assistant dean of business at the University Of Alberta and says that they simply won't accept students from Saskatchewan if they have no grades on their transcripts.
I'm pretty sure a lot of other Universities will feel the same.
All quality universities have a very large pool of applicants to choose for admission and those without valid transcripts will simply be tossed aside.
Until someone comes up with a better way to validate education, Grades must be used. | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 6:18:20 PM | ^^^^^^^
I believe it will likely hurt too, as it is a small pool who are taking the ungraded position so far and, in the case cited, they are at the collegiate/high school level. I can perhaps see a form of ungraded testing in much younger kids and eventually sorting those who learn in different ways into different forms of a new and improved educational system, but not suddenly at the collegiate level. There are those who are better at tactile learning and "trades" and those who are better at academia and those who fit somewhere in between at all kinds of other levels, not because one faction is any more intelligent than the other but because their brains are inherently different and process information and assimilate it differently. | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 6:22:56 PM | What a great idea! I've always thought grades were so subjective. A report card is one persons opinion that's it.
It makes more sense to me to dicuss areas where the student is having difficulties and finding a way which suits that childs individual learning style.
The way it is can be damaging to an impressionable child who often is often accepting of labels people give them. To me a grade is like a label.
I would want the goal of my child attending school to be to develop interests in learning and to be an independent thinker not to copy what the teacher is saying to be rewarded with a grade.
Right now the students who get the highest grade are the students who are the best at copying the teacher. More often children who follow what their heart is telling them to do in school are penalized or silenced.
An example from my daughters kindergarten is the teacher mentioned she was not cooperating at craft time. Turns out the craft was to lick the paste off the back of stickers the teacher called "lick-n-stick" and make pictures on the paper. My daughter asked for a water sponge which was denied so she refused to do the craft. I gave her a high-five for that even though from the schools perspective she failed to do a simple craft.
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 8:33:42 PM |
What a great idea! I've always thought grades were so subjective. A report card is one persons opinion that's it.
These kind of nonsensical statements will be in even more abundance if we abolish grades. And that would be tragic. | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 9:35:05 PM | What they need is to test using a magical giant living labyrinth!
Unwary teams will enter, only to find their memory and recall skills mean nothing here!
It will be collaborative cunning that will see them through this horrifying machination.
For this beast eats carbon copiers for breakfast.
So it is now written, so it must now be done!  | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 9:49:53 PM | What a stupid idea. Hurt feelings?! I'll bet kids have had their feelings hurt more by their peers, at this point in life. We'll wind up with a bunch of ebonics, text messenging, and homie-speak kids that will fail miserably in life.
We all get hurt feelings, but this is another method of reducing any responsibility on the part of children. I can't believe these people are thinking of this.  | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 9:56:40 PM |
Why do we have a Mona Lisa? Why do we have a Sistine Chapel ceiling, a statue of David, the song 'White christmas', the poetry of Browining, the collected works of Mark Twain or the philosophies of Kant and Plato?
Great examples. So...what grades did these folks get?
My point is not that we should eliminate incentives to excel. Quite the opposite. By focusing on providing the tools to maximize talents and ambitions, rather than trying to force everyone into some predetermined formula for acceptability and grading them against how close to the norm they come, we FOSTER the next Michelangelo, Irving Berlin, Kant, Plato, Twain, etc...
Dave | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 10:21:51 PM | I went to a grade school like that in California when I was a kid, it sucks. We couldn't be held back, we couldn't be told we weren't trying hard enough and we all got passing grades. Yes we got grades, but always passing no matter how badly one did. I also fell into the time when phonics weren't taught and sight reading was the big thing. I still can't spell, I have no idea what 'sounding out' a word means, it sucks! What happened is that nobody cared if I learned anything or not, hell I couldn't spell my first name until the third grade and had an older teacher who took pity on me. I had no study skills and had no idea who one learned anything. Mind you I have a normal IQ, I was tested because the school and my parents thought I was slow, nope, high IQ but an underachiever. Who knows, maybe some scholarly discipline was called for.
I did great in college but then I was in my 40s and grown up enough to know that an education isn't just handed to you, you have to work at it.
If it wasn't for Spell Check, you wouldn't be able to read my posts. 
Something else, we moved from CA to MO during my 7th grade year, talk about a slap in the face. There I was, totally uneducated and plopped into classrooms full of kids who have been well educated. It was awful, it made me try even less and take on that class clown act to get by. It was totally unfair, and had I not been somewhat smart I never would have done as well as I did. I dropped out of high school, I was sick of always feeling stupid and behind. I didn't know till I went to college that A's weren't that hard to get. | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 10:23:18 PM | Holy crap! "No Kid Left Behind" has jumped the border! I thought it was bad enough when kids starting having the full year to take a test untill they passed it!
Failure teaches us how and where we need to improve. It teaches us to want to improve. How many inventors passed the first time out? How many artists were immediately successful? How many doctors got everything right in med school the first time?
Seriously, if kids aren't taught standards to live up to and surpass, where will society end up? Do you want the doctor that went to a highly accredited school? Or one that went to whatever school would accept them? Do you want to fly on a plane w/ a pilot that just barely passed? Or one w/ a pilot that excelled? What if drivers couldn't fail an exam?
As for no hurt feelings? Smart kids get enough self-esteem knocks from their peers. Do they need the added self esteem issues of not even having some area of their life they excel in? Whether its sports, music, art, or scholastics, it does give them some confidence in themselves if they are doing better than their peers a subject. Now not only are they not being acknowledged by their peers for something they can succeed in, the adults are not going to be acknowledging it either.
Wonder if there will be a rise in home schooling or private schooling? | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/22/2009 10:55:50 PM | Some of the best Universities on the planet have no letter grades.
It doesn't seem to hurt their graduates much. | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/23/2009 12:10:39 AM | Using a different method to evaluate children's strengths doesn't mean less education. The current grading system only motivates a select few who are motivated by grades and doesn't really do anything to cater to individual strengths.
The future result would be good if we put more effort into developing a child's natural strengths rather than focusing on making them recite to get a grade.
If it's true we are all created differently, then how are we are supposed to fit into the same box? Grades are just a box.
I've seen many complaints about the profile box on POF being too small to describe oneself and yet an even smaller box is supposed to sum up a child's academic abilities?
Alot of teacher time goes into grading which could be more effeciently used elsewhere in my opinion. | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/23/2009 2:42:22 AM |
I just read an article in my local newspaper where the writer said he read an article just before Christmas that stated, starting in the new year, certain schools in Saskatoon (for those of you who are from outside of Canada, that's a city in the province of Saskatchewan) are adopting a "no one fails" philosophy, as they intend to abandon actually grading students. Fearful a low mark may lead to hurt feelings, the school system has devised this "no more hurt feelings" assessment protocol. A student in English literature whose written assignment equals the quality of Charles****ns will be told he/she has passed. A student turning in a written assignment of quality mirroring the skills of the average Jerry Springer guest will be told they have also passed.
I haven't googled to find if this is in fact the case (but it wouldn't surprise me in the least in this day and age), but was interested in your thoughts if such IS the case.
OP -- O M F G!
WORST. IDEA. EVER.
I'd have thought that we had advanced as a society, but it's stories like this that make it abundantly clear we have scaled ourselves BACKWARDS instead. You have GOT to be kidding me! No one fails?! So how is one supposed to learn from failure if that is no longer an option? And what the f*ck do "feelings" have to do with anything?!
I've just become utterly disgusted with society at large. So concerned with "feelings" being hurt that we're gonna go ahead and do more harm than good. What's next I wonder...if they don't show up at school except first day and last day that's okay too, because no one fails?
Pathetic.
I'm disgusted with Canada and anyone else that thinks NOT failing students is remotely acceptable. This is the WORST thing we can do for our children. Unless they know that failure has consequences, how are they to learn that they need to buckle down and take things seriously? THEY WON'T. Chalk this up to yet another monumental way that the brass have failed our children...and a dropkick to the parents that support this travesty.
Canada...EPIC FAIL  | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/23/2009 3:31:54 AM |
This is the WORST thing we can do for our children. Yup... it teaches children that they are entitled to success without having to work for it... and that there is no such thing as coming in second...
If there's no goal, why strive?
I'm disgusted with Canada and anyone else that thinks NOT failing students is remotely acceptable. Yup... I'm with you on this one too BDJ.
There is no value in something for nothing... and hell, I see that already in people my age and older. So let's just continue to offer rewards for lackluster work/participation...
When the country collapses in the future because of decisions made today, I would hope that a couple of people that have actually wanted to learn will look back on this as a pivotal decision...
I'm not holding out much hope though... | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/23/2009 7:56:06 AM | I don't see how not grading or using a different method to determine where a child's strengths are would lead to less education and less learning would occur. I think the opposite would occur and the children would be more educated. More educated children means a stronger future for the country.
I believe in instilling a love of learning rather than rewarding follow the leader with a mark in a box on a paper. I don't think that is rewarding true work ethic it is teaching how to be a good ass kisser though.
I was an honour student because I was excellent at knowing what the teacher wanted and repeating back not because I actually learned something worth rewarding.
As for the workforce no one has ever asked to see my grades. Graduating with honors should have landed me a good job according to many opinions on here. The good jobs I've had have been because of who I know not how big of an achiever I was in school.
So my time spent in school and all that effort to please the teacher being labelled an honor student didn't do anything for me in the "real" world.
Please explain to me how changing the current way children are labelled means the same thing as teaching them ebonics in school and loss of instruction and correction.
In the workplace the people who feel the best about being there are the ones who put out the maximum for their employer and children are no different (other than they havn't learned to suppress their natural instincts to the follow along mentality).
I agree failure is an important lesson in life, so is the word no but I disagree that changing the current grading system would take away from these lessons. | |
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| No Grades in School!!??
Posted: 1/23/2009 8:05:31 AM | ...in defence of Canada...it's not just a Canadian educational system change and it's not a wide spread system here at all - I'm sure there would be an uprising (in a meek, mild, policitically correct sorta way). It's being practiced elsewhere...apparently.
^^^^^^^
If you get a job based on who you know and that's the only reason you get a job, you're not likely to keep it for long. If you apply for a job, be it a mechanic or an accountant, how long would you keep the job based on who you know and not what you know? | |
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