No Right Answer

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Home : 2003 : January : 11

No Right Answer
By S

I think everybody's grading system here is good for some kids and not good for others. YES, there are some kids who work extremely hard and still get D's or F's ... for those kids it breaks my heart to write those low scores
on their papers or report cards, and I often end up giving them a little "bump" for effort when it comes to report card grades. However, there are other kids who never do their work, never take school seriously, get all F's, and then brag about those F's to their friends. Why should those kids have their grades bumped up? (Although, in reality, these kids don't care one way or the

other ... you could put a Z on that report card and they probably wouldn't notice.)

I also think there's a big difference between grades in elementary school and grades in high school. In elementary school, you might want to be a little more flexible with grades, because your goal is to motivate them to try harder and learn those basic skills. However, in high school, you shouldn't be forced into giving a D if a student doesn't try, because that student could graduate on all D's and not have given one ounce of effort.

Therefore, this is such a difficult and controversial issue because there is no one right answer. What's good for one student or class may not be good for another student or class. I think all of us resent being told by an administrator how to grade our classes, though.

If I could think of a better system, I would do away with grades altogether. There certainly is not greater time of stress than report card time at my school.