Basing the world off grades is a foolish ideal that only ends in the waste of good talent. Grades are unimportant riffraff that has taken root in our society. The ability to live a healthy life depends solely on how well one's grades were. The system as I have come to see it is this: Get good grades to go to a good college to get a good job and earn lots of money. Do we really wish to base our society off of the interpretations of information spat on to paper? There's is a fine line between theory and practice. In theory I know that the pistons of an engine are powered by the explosions of gasoline inside them. In practice I know not how to build an engine or how using a certain gas with a certain engine could destroy it. Practice is better then theory. One could tell me how an engine works but would it not be better just to have built the engine and shown me? Grades are based on the knowing of a subject not the practice. We do homework to prepare ourselves when homework is nothing but meaningless review. We take tests which are no better then spittoons for our knowledge. One would think it'd be wiser to hire the High School drop out with 5 years of recommendable job experience then a 4.0 GPA student who claimed to have picked up a hammer once. These Grades of ours should be based on Practice rather then Theory. One can know 500 different words in Spanish but also be unable to understand or speak with a Fluent Spaniard. Only a handful base their grading scale this way and thus we turn out students that understand theory instead of workers who understand theory because they understand the practice.This is my stand on this discussion and I await yours.
Grades
Started by
Guest_SabishiiChojutsuka
, Dec 29 2008 06:26 AM
46 replies to this topic
#1
Guest_SabishiiChojutsuka
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Posted 29 December 2008 - 06:26 AM
#2
Guest_darkside213
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Posted 29 December 2008 - 08:08 AM
Well, i can honestly say that was a very well written argument. I agree with you, too. Not that grades are bad, but they should be more based on what the student can actually accomplish, instead of being able to answer the question correctly. Many of the greatest people the world has seen have not done well in school, no matter what area of interest you look into. I go to a tech school where we actually perform a job and get graded on how well we complete the task. We actually have had companies ask our students to help them with something they actually used and still do use today.I guess I'm kinda in the middle though because i have a 4.0 GPA, but only because what i do at school is something that i actually enjoy.
#3
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Posted 29 December 2008 - 02:16 PM
You seem to have the misconception that practice is, in general, much better than theory. This is only true for simple tasks, and not for more demanding ones. I don't know entirely how you do things in your high-schools, but in ours, we have a choice between a vocational direction and a study direction. Those who choose the vocational direction have much easier classes, and focus on learning their trades, before getting an apprenticeship. They are in general, for all intents and purposes, idiots.Those who choose a study direction tend to be the more intelligent, and it is a much more demanding "route" to take. Grades matter more, and good ones are required for being accepted for study in the university you want.I'm confused as to why a person with a 4.0 GPA (I assume this is pretty good, I'm unfamiliar with GPAs) would need to wield a hammer in the first place. You don't generally hire students for that kind of work; you hire people who have experience in the area. There is no real theory to the simple crafts, therefore experience is more beneficial than knowledge.I can agree that grades are slightly ridiculous though. For example; I am graded on physical education (a class I cannot choose not to take) which in turn affects my average, which in turn affects my possibilities in choice of university and further direction of study. My grade in PE should not determine whether or not I can be a scientist or engineer. Likewise; ones mathematical talents should not determine whether one can get into a dance-school (it has happened).As for learning things properly; that has nothing to do with grades, only to do with the educational system and the way it determines grades. The grade-system itself is not to blame, only the prerequisites for the grades. Over here, learning 500 words would not have helped you one bit in Spanish. You'd need to be able to speak Spanish to some extent, not to mention be able to write letters and so forth (the kind you send in the mail).
#4
Guest_SabishiiChojutsuka
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Posted 29 December 2008 - 05:06 PM
Even in more demanding tasks practice would be the better approach. Though I suppose practicing building a working nuclear bomb would be bad even if you were going to be a nuclear engineer. Overall though practice tends to be better then theory, as in knowing in your mind how to do the task instead of how to do it with your own hands.I apologize in the heat of my argument I drifted away from what I actually wanted to portray. The really villainy of Grades is that forced taking of classes that one doesn't actually need. Apprenticeships are better in my mind only after you have a stable education of other subjects. At my School you are unable to take classes were one would actually do the work of the job until their third year. Then we still have to have had taken classes of the boring nature.Grades are not bad more or else just too balanced where a class that you shouldn't have to take tips the whole scale against you.For reference, GPA stands for Grade Point Average 4.0 is a perfect GPA
#5
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Posted 29 December 2008 - 05:57 PM
The problem with theoretical fields is that experience requires theory first. You can't become a scientist without knowing the basics, and the basics tend to be five times harder for a scientist than a carpenter, no matter how much you dislike the notion. Like I said, over here, we have vocational schools where you do pretty much what you want. These professions are professions anyone could do. Scientific studies and similar are harder, and require a different approach (learning theory first, then getting experience once one is ready).I'm hoping my country's educational system improves with the years. Technically, people who take my classes have the chance to get above the highest possible grade average due to extra points. Hard classes that require a lot of effort give you bonus points which are calculated into your average after you finish school.I'm somewhat confused how anyone can maintain a "perfect" score. Over here, that would imply extreme amounts of work. Likely, it's pretty much impossible. Depends on how nice your teachers are, I guess.I feel that only the grades that apply to whatever you intend on pursuing should matter - but obviously you should require a passing grade in every class. It does however seem silly that even if I get perfect grades on everything required for my studies.
#6
Ragamuffin
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Posted 29 December 2008 - 08:54 PM
Not to really get into this one but I have no problem with a grading system, as long as it isn't one of those "check, check+ or check-" systems. I don't know if any other country besides America does this (mainly in the lower grades), but it's stupid and vague. Schools have done this to eliminate competition, because over here in America's school system it's supposedly wrong to excel in anything, you just might make someone look bad and hurt their feelings! :oThat being said, grades do not necessarily denote intelligence. There's always cheaters, and there's also people who don't learn in conventional ways, and still others who excel at subjects and areas that a regular school doesn't teach.As far as the specifics of America's current grading system goes, I can't say because it's not something that I've spent a whole lot of time looking into.
A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny. -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#7
sarzeath
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Posted 07 January 2009 - 03:22 AM
i agree with what Archbishop is saying about the check system and about grades not equaling intellegence.for consideration, the people that America considers to be retards. many of them may be dumb in some areas, but it's like a switch. stupid in math, awsome at science. stuff like that.plus people who cheat, cheat themself.also, i happen to be a good example of this. i apposlutly suck at writing english and i think in pictures, but yet i'm awsome at math, science and IED (intro. to engneering desgin).finally, people do think diffrently. that has been proven. therefore standerdized tests cannot truly reflect the education that the student has recived.basicly what it boils down to is that i think grades should be a reflection of how you learn and how well you learned. for example the person who does well with real things instead of doing tests could hand in models and labs for test grades and such. if the models reflect the info. truly they make a good grade. if not, then they don't. just like spitting out A, B, C, D, and E on a test forum. i realize, though, that the tests are set up that way for convince of the teacher. it's eaiser to grade something when you stick the right awnsers into a machine, along with the students tests, and it spits them out with the wrong ones marked.
#8
Guest_popprs
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Posted 07 January 2009 - 06:22 AM
Grades are an accumulation of what you've done and how you rank among others in effort. It's no secret that grades don't gauge genius, but they do gauge effort. Even if they don't effectively gauge effort, you still get students of the same performance. A smart person who doesn't try in life is almost the same as a dumb person who diligently tries. So you're definitely right that grades don't determine anything, but then again, who said they do? It's the mentality and connotation of grades that you seem to not enjoy. "Get good grades to go to a good college to get a good job and earn lots of money" A doctor makes shit(excuse me) wage for the amount of schooling he is required to take. A grade school teacher makes shit(excuse me) wage for the amount of schooling required. An engineer makes shit(excuse me) wage for the amount of schooling he's required to take in context to other careers. Your major grievance with the grading system was never a fact or even a really widely held belief. The money thing is usually equated with respect by those who lack it. It becomes an obsession and you're drilled by it, but in reality, it means nothing. Your dogma is better changed to, "Get good grades to go to a good college to get a good job and earn lots of respect." Correcting it still means nothing however.On the flip side, do you suggest we pick up apprenticeship again? You seem to be more intrigued by the idea of that than a systematic way of weighing everyone's abilities. I'll tell you this much, the idea of job experience and recommendations is still as subjective as the idea of grades. Just as grades don't really tell you as a whole, recommendations and apprenticeships don't do the same. Real work experience doesn't equate to real work competence. I could have my uncle, who is a doctor vouch for 3 years of work under him. I filed papers for him. Does that mean I'm experienced as a doctor? Of course not. Am I able to go into his private practice and help him with surgeries? I would hope I never get the ability to. I'm not trained or certified to do that for a reason. I didn't earn the grades for the abilities needed to perform such tasks. What if my uncle was a teacher and decided to pass me without really recognizing my skills? I would certainly hope this is never the case. Doctors are forgetful enough to even forget they have students following them. Like I said before, no one will argue grades are perfect, but what other way do we have to evaluate students practically, efficiently, and with the least amount of space for failures to graduate? You nitpick, but you don't offer a solution or anything to compare with that is able to rival the system of grading we currently employ. So, between switching back to medeival styled education and keeping our current grade system, I think the latter wins.
Edited by popprs, 07 January 2009 - 06:24 AM.
#9
Guest_Weapon XI
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Posted 07 January 2009 - 02:51 PM
You make a good point and your interpretation is clear. I'm going to have to disagree in a slight. At school, your work is comparable to performances. Think of grades as an audience. The better you perform, the better your audience is to you. As you get better and better you typically get to go to better performances, and then in the end, you get a permanant gig as whatever kind of performer you want to be. Someone above said it should be based on what you accomplish. It is. Is having knowledge and skills not an accomplishment? That's what you get your grades based on. Knowledge and skills. Obviously, if you don't have knowledge and skills you aren't going to get anywhere in the world. You say that this work is just answers spat on paper. Maybe so. But it is a test of what you know. Your education is based upon two things. Creativity and intelligence. And if you don't get judged on these things, then could you not live your whole life not knowing? Just being a very confused and uneducated person.
#10
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Posted 17 January 2009 - 03:31 PM
Most school-systems today base your performance on how well you can read for a test; not how well you know the material. Schools only teach you how to cram for tests in my experience; and on occasion give you some useful projects (presentations and so forth).What I'd like to see is the forgetting-curve implemented properly in an educational system. I wonder what the performance boost would be, or there would be one at all.The forgetting curve demonstrates how well one remembers something after x days in relation to how many times one has repeated it. It has been researched thoroughly.I'd rather have one test in every field a year, after using a program based on the forgetting curve, than have two per month based on "cramming" for specific tests.You make a good point and your interpretation is clear.I'm going to have to disagree in a slight. At school, your work is comparable to performances. Think of grades as an audience. The better you perform, the better your audience is to you. As you get better and better you typically get to go to better performances, and then in the end, you get a permanant gig as whatever kind of performer you want to be.Someone above said it should be based on what you accomplish. It is. Is having knowledge and skills not an accomplishment? That's what you get your grades based on. Knowledge and skills.Obviously, if you don't have knowledge and skills you aren't going to get anywhere in the world. You say that this work is just answers spat on paper. Maybe so. But it is a test of what you know. Your education is based upon two things. Creativity and intelligence. And if you don't get judged on these things, then could you not live your whole life not knowing?Just being a very confused and uneducated person.
#11
reddeath26
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Posted 20 January 2009 - 04:17 PM
Grades themselves are not a negative thing, from my perspective. If utilized to their full potential they can be a very good indicator of where individual students strengths and weaknesses lie. I would place the problem in two other camps. Firstly the centralization of the education system and secondly the constant tests. Although in New Zealand we have recently had some reforms to our education system so the test issue is not so major anymore. I will however address it due to some members here living in countries where it is an issue. Centralization of curricula Firstly I do recognize that this has a role to play in education. However this is something I would like to see relaxed more. Ideally classrooms should be an environment where the teacher is able to be responsive to their pupils. By this I would want an environment where the teacher can find a middle ground between their strengths and those of the students. This would include the teacher having more control over assignments and tests. There would still be an ideal national benchmark, however how this is tested would be more up to the teachers. Constant testsTests despite being able to indicate a students level to some degree of accuracy should not be used too often. It promotes an approach of simply learning to remember as opposed to learning to understand. In New Zealand we have reformed it so it is common for a class have half of its marks in an exam and half in assignments. I find splitting it up into assignments and exams to be an ideal approach. This way you are able to cater more to various learning styles. I also find the apprenticeship scheme to be quite encouraging.
#12
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Posted 20 January 2009 - 05:12 PM
In Norway, tests and the way the curriculum is taught is decided by the teachers, primarily. To avoid over-loading students' study weeks with tests, I think they use computer programs to decide what test is held when. Furthermore, teachers decide which tests are used, and they can make their own. Assignments are also primarily under the control of the teachers. The problem however is that our current educational system does not take into account "the forgetting curve", and so we end up reading for tests rather than for knowledge.As previously mentioned: Grades are not the problem. The problem lies in how people are graded - namely by tests of how good you are at cramming information into your head for short periods of time.
#13
Guest_vitaminvirus
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Posted 27 June 2009 - 03:04 AM
I think grades show something, but not everything. A lot of people think grades are everything which is not true. A big part of a grade is tests, and a lot of peeps have test anxiety
#14
Guest_applepeople
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Posted 27 June 2009 - 04:14 AM
that is a harder idea to debate but i think it should be diffrent i like sicence but it wont help too much in all the jobs im considering i cant get an A in it eitherhistory im good at and it will help me with being an author grades are hard to say are bad because they are a concept we grew up on we just think that way and its crazy thinking that without grades people could grow up stupid however some people cant grasp the concepts and fail to wrap it up grades arnt perfect nothing is but they have good intentions
#16
Guest_Phenomenonsense
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Posted 29 June 2009 - 03:00 AM
Your examples are completely biased to be honest. Talking about physical labor jobs, yes you can learn by doing, that's how I learned basic roofing skills. I can go pick up a dictionary and learn 500 spanish words, who gives a damn? I need a class, or someone to teach me all there is about the grammar before I can understand a speaker of spanish. You're arguments are weak at best. Obviously there are cases where people are the exception, but more often than not, they're the rule. Ignoring the fact that, by getting an A in courses that go towards your major you are gaining a much greater knowledge of how things work, why they work, etc, but you show potential employers that you are willing to go above and beyond. It shows employers you're dedicated to a given field of work, that you're willing to put in the time outside of work, that you're a worth while employee. There are many things that standardized tests and grades show that aren't directly talked about.I can rebuild, ignorantly, an engine with my dad, but it is far less efficient than having taken an "How engines work class" and then rebuilding the engine. Why? I know how things work, and more importantly, I know why they work that way. And you know what? Now that I know they how and why, if something breaks down, I can problem solve it.Basing the world off grades is a foolish ideal that only ends in the waste of good talent. Grades are unimportant riffraff that has taken root in our society. The ability to live a healthy life depends solely on how well one's grades were. The system as I have come to see it is this: Get good grades to go to a good college to get a good job and earn lots of money. Do we really wish to base our society off of the interpretations of information spat on to paper? There's is a fine line between theory and practice. In theory I know that the pistons of an engine are powered by the explosions of gasoline inside them. In practice I know not how to build an engine or how using a certain gas with a certain engine could destroy it. Practice is better then theory. One could tell me how an engine works but would it not be better just to have built the engine and shown me? Grades are based on the knowing of a subject not the practice. We do homework to prepare ourselves when homework is nothing but meaningless review. We take tests which are no better then spittoons for our knowledge. One would think it'd be wiser to hire the High School drop out with 5 years of recommendable job experience then a 4.0 GPA student who claimed to have picked up a hammer once. These Grades of ours should be based on Practice rather then Theory. One can know 500 different words in Spanish but also be unable to understand or speak with a Fluent Spaniard. Only a handful base their grading scale this way and thus we turn out students that understand theory instead of workers who understand theory because they understand the practice.This is my stand on this discussion and I await yours.
#17
*Chewbacca*
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Posted 29 June 2009 - 05:50 PM
Well, I completely agree that grades are been given way too much head weight then the actual use of learning something.Actually people really don't go into detail, what I mean to say is, whether the person really deserves that spot in that college or job.People really need to open their eyes to the open facts that people with good grades are not always as consistent as persons who are practically well versed.What's the real point of mugging some random facts from the book unless you can really apply them when it's needed.
#18
Guest_raisewar
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Posted 30 June 2009 - 05:30 AM
grades are soooo bad. Really they are just an american caste system. Take a group of peopel and base their lives and social role on what they get on paper. it is utterly ridiculous.
#19
Guest_BooKings
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Posted 30 June 2009 - 05:57 PM
As ridiculous as it may seem to you, the world is definitely NOT an equal place. It is foolish to believe everyone can become a doctor or a scientist, some people are more intelligent then others and employers need a standard reference to see how good someone is at learning and at problem solving (which most high level education tests do include). Meaning that for most people a grading system is accurate to identify who would be apt enough to get high level education jobs that require lots of intelligence and if someone is intelligent but has problems involving learning and holding things in memory he will be able to find tricks to make him remember better still giving him good grades where as an idiot would simply flunk not knowing what to do.That being said, Death of Heavens already clearly explained why the only alternative that exists at the moment does work so the best of two worlds is obviously a grade system. And anyway, a very intelligent person could become a businessman with a minimal amount of education and gets lots of money without necessairily having good grades in school although those good grades would definitely be more convincing to get loans from the bank. (My uncle would be a good example, he owns a series of pharmacieutical shops which he started in association with a friend, a pharmacist, without having past three years education beyond high school and its working out great ) Grades and education is simply a system, one that has proven itself to be quite accurate for over 50 years now and that can be circumvented with intelligence if you know what you are doing ( getting associates and friends with knowledge would be a good way to go and building your own company from there, but of course unless you are a genius of some sort you may as well stick with the system that works.)grades are soooo bad. Really they are just an american caste system. Take a group of peopel and base their lives and social role on what they get on paper. it is utterly ridiculous.
#20
Toph Bei Fong
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Posted 30 June 2009 - 11:12 PM
I agree on that somehow. I agree with it on Elementary and High School Why not just take the course that your career is under and study it. Besides, they also teach other subjects like Mathematics and English. In Science, it lets you discover things like Medicine and Machines that would make life easier.
#21
Guest_iguanaguy16
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Posted 01 July 2009 - 12:19 AM
i find it wrong that your chances of success are best on grades. you get grades in your earliest stage in life the stage at which you are least responsible and don't know any better
#22
rocky19
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Posted 01 July 2009 - 12:52 AM
I believe that grades are good when used correctly. Nowadays, colleges does not only look at your grades, but at a wide spectrum to get a grasp of that person. Grades only serves to show one side of a person. Grades could also show one's weakness and one's strength.
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#23
skulhedface
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Posted 01 July 2009 - 07:13 AM
Grades are a double edged sword. Depending on their use, they can be a good indicator of your progress, or they can be an arbitrary marking with little to no meaning. Grades are meant to be one thing, fundamentally-- a gauge of your academic progress. On the surface, it's basically stated that if you have good grades, you're doing good learning the material, and bad grades suggest the opposite.Here's where I disagree with grades.--Are they truly a good measure of academic progress? Most people claim 'test anxiety', or, put simply, that they know the material but simply don't test well. Conversely, you may bomb on your homework but ace any test laid in front of you. This was my problem; I was too lazy to ever do homework, but when it came time to take a test, I could almost always ace the biatch. My ACTs and SATs are proof of this in my eyes. I always got bored in class because they moved too slow. Everyone else would be on Chapter One, meanwhile I read ahead while the lecture was dragging on. You're on Chapter one, I'm on fifteen. And I remembered it enough that even now, 10 years after I've graduated, I can still ace a high school test with no study time. I know because I helped my little sister study. From memory. -- Also, do they really measure how much you know and determine your future? There are probably ditch diggers out there who can build a large Hadron Collider, meanwhile the nurse getting ready to stick a catheter in your urethra got through medical school by cheating, and in actuality couldn't do middle school algebra without writing the whole book on her arms during a test.-- Grades are almost arbitrary. In a "think" class, where you're graded on essays, personal interpretations, etc, you can basically get a bad grade if you disagree with the teacher's point of view. IE, if you're pro choice, your teacher is prolife, and you write a choice essay that'd fundamentally be good enough to win the Nobel Abortion Prize or whatever, the teach will still grade you horribly because she disagreed with you and probably is letting her bias drag you down academically. I speak from personal experience on this one. I never wrote a Nobel essay, but I still wrote a damn good paper and received a damn poor grade on it.--Cheating. I earned my grades. The complete tool who sat next to me and spent his study time dateraping co-eds and is within peeping range of my test paper sure wasn't. I always dreaded when the teacher would grade by handing out random student's papers to other students, because it was WITHOUT FAIL a window into the idiocy of the generic public school student. I'm stereotyping for humor here, but let's face it-- I don't remember a SINGLE time having to grade another student's paper and NOT thinking they were a complete idiot. And it brought out the grammar nazi in me too. *sighs*I'm sorry, I've turned a legitimate topic into griping, but I'd assume some of you would be completely inclined to agree.
#24
Guest_Georgie94
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Posted 08 July 2009 - 10:59 AM
Like most people,I would say grades are neither good no bad.Really,sometimes misunderstanding occurs.What's a person with a high GPA doing work at KFC?And how did a dropout get to become a CEO?How did one get into Yale while the other to nowhere?Basically,it's our personality and fate that makes us who we are.I'm willing to pick a person who gets ridiculed just because he isn't a nerd but doesn't give up over some top class cream of the crop who doesn't fully concentrate on his task at almost any day of the week (take note "ALMOST").Of course,sometimes patience runs out,but in all,it's just up to fate that leads us,not grades...
#25
Guest_pokemann2
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Posted 08 July 2009 - 04:15 PM
While it's true that grades may not be the most accurate thing ever, it mostly is right. There are some great people who had bad grades or didn't even finish school. Those are exceptions, there's only so much of that kind of people. Basing your chances of success upon your grades may not be be 100% accurate, but it is right most of the time.
