Going back to the days of John Dewey, education professors have been tormenting us with foolish ideas. How about this: abolish grading.
In today’s Martin Center article, I review a recent book by an education professor who says that grading is a terrible practice that harms students.
The author, Professor Joshua Eyler, laments the way grading turns schools from happy places of discovery into feared places of competition. The whole book has a utopianism about it. Marx envisioned a lovely society if only we could get rid of private property; Eyler envisions beautiful schools once we get rid of grades.
What about incentives to study? Eyler maintains that grades depress students’ natural curiosity and create artificial barriers to studying beyond what’s needed to get whatever grade the student is aiming for. From my own experience with college students, few of them have much natural curiosity about academic subjects and would be perfectly happy to get credit for courses where they never once cracked the book.
What system would be better? Eyler would eliminate grades entirely, but until that wonderful day comes, he extols alternatives like “collaborative grading,” where the student and professor confer and come to a mutually agreeable grade. In practice, all that would mean is that no student ever gets a D or F since the laziest students would negotiate up to a C, doubtless saying that they tried very hard.
The book is utterly unpersuasive, but it might nevertheless gain traction in education schools and unleash many new teachers who have been taught to fight the evil old grading system.