There has been a lot of discussion lately revolving around the grades that students receive in our schools. The questions being raised usually center around whether we have lowered the standards so much that high grades and honors have become meaningless.
I’d like to raise a counterpoint to this conversation, and it is this: grades have always been meaningless and we need to stop telling students otherwise.
Grades are a distraction from learning
Studies have shown for decades that when students are focused on earning good grades, they tend to learn less. (See Beck, et al, 1991; Milton, et al, 1986; Covington, et al, 2000). Extrinsic motivation that comes from external rewards like grades undermines intrinsic motivation like acquiring knowledge and mastering skills. This is not to say that learning cannot happen in such a scenario, but it becomes more of an unintended consequence than the goal itself.
Ruth Butler (1986, 1987, 1988) also showed that the quality of thinking from students who were receiving grades for their work was significantly worse than students who received qualitative feedback without any form of ratings.
The educator John Holt wrote in the 1960s that grades serve primarily as the coercive component of our education system. We make students do what we want them to do by threatening them with the prospect of low grades.
But you cannot force a student to learn. If the only thing compelling students to do something is the threat of a failing grade, then we need to reexamine whether that thing is really worth doing, and whether we have motivated students well enough to learn.
Incidentally, I don’t believe that students today don’t want to learn. It’s just that so many classrooms are so, so boring.
When people argue that without grades students will not want to learn, it is the biggest evidence of how much grades have distorted education. There is no more learning for learning’s sake. Quantifying learning – that is, putting a number or other form or rating to it — takes the joy away from learning and changes the goal to getting the highest rating.
What do grades really tell us?
In a word, nothing. Not a damn thing.
Although we often say that grades are meant to measure students’ learning, in reality grades have never truly reflected every student’s competence in a discipline. Grades more closely reflect a student’s ability to conform to their teacher’s expectations and comply with requirements, and the ability to memorize just enough information for just long enough to regurgitate on a test.
Not all grades of 95 are equal. Some may reflect true mastery, some are the result of a lot of effort, some are a reflection of privilege, some reflect conformity and compliance, some may be due to leniency on the part of the rater. Not all 75s are equal either, with the corresponding reasons leaning the other direction. And there is no way for an outside observer to know what a grade indicates based solely on the number.
In her viral 2011 speech, valedictorian Erica Goldson described herself as “the best slave,” who then felt unsure of what do with her life because all she had ever done was what she was told. She called school “a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.” She’s not wrong.
I have been told since I was young that Filipinos value education. My experience dealing with both students and parents tells me that is not true. Filipinos value graduation. We want the diploma and any way of getting it — learning be damned — is valid. Just get to the end, whatever it takes. That is why so many of us finish with nothing other than the piece of paper to display on our walls.
Don’t tell kids they need to pass
We see mass promotion policies as problematic, and rightfully so. But that’s not the only problem. Students are okay with benefitting from such policies because we tell them — whether explicitly or implicitly — that the goal is to pass; to make it to the next level; to graduate.
We could help our students along by liberating them from the bondage of the pursuit of grades. Passing and failing are fleeting, and ultimately irrelevant; what really matters is whether you learn or not.
We do not judge other people in our lives by their grades.
The most savvy employers today no longer use grades as a primary basis for hiring.
The only place where grades matter is in school. And they become meaningless the moment we step out the gate.
As a student from the years when it was believed that “standards were higher,” I cannot tell you enough how much I hated school. I felt that some requirements were designed only to rate me, not to teach me. And I grew tired of working for the pleasure of my teachers than myself. It wasn’t until I stopped thinking about my grades and chasing honors that I got the most out of my education.
Now, I recognize that statement is dripping with privilege. First, I had the opportunity to go to quality schools where teachers were mostly good. I also had the privilege of having parents that didn’t pressure me to get the highest grades and be at the top of the class. I also had the privilege of having a family where reading is valued and I was surrounded by books from a young age.
Still, I believe anyone can reap greater benefits from their schooling by having the chance to focus on learning rather than, in the words of Erica Goldson, “excelling for the sake of excelling.”
Don’t tell students they need to pass; tell them they need to learn.
Try ungrading
A more long-term solution to the problem of grades is to eventually find a way to get rid of them altogether. Ungrading is a growing movement abroad, where teachers make it a point to reduce the centrality of grades in the classroom.
You can find online the blogs of Jesse Stommel, Alfie Kohn, Clarissa Sorensen-Unruh, among many other pioneers of the ungrading movement. These teachers have found ways to sidestep the value of grades, even while still teaching in institutions that require them to give grades at the end of the term. They do this in three main steps:
- No grade is given on any task that is performed during the term.
- They focus on qualitative feedback instead of any rating system.
- They invite the students to participate in negotiating their grades at the end of the term.
There have been a few studies done on the impact of ungrading and the results have been encouraging (Rapchak, et al, 2022; Gorichanaz, 2022; Burns, et al, 2023; Hasinoff, et al, 2024). Some of the advantages they have seen are the following:
- It refocuses students’ attention on just learning for the sake of learning.
- It gives students permission to make mistakes and make explorations they might not otherwise do in a class which penalizes poor performance.
- It reduces the pressure to do well and has a positive impact on students’ mental health and well-being.
- Ungrading is more equitable, as grades tend to disadvantage marginalized students.
While they share that there is always some adjustment period for students, the anecdotal evidence suggests that most students have a positive response to being liberated from grades.
Part of the reason graded systems have persisted is because teaching without them is a much harder affair. Without the threat of giving failing grades, teachers will actually have to be interesting and knowledgeable about their subject. Without the threat of grades to coerce students to listen and do their requirements, the onus is on teachers to justify that something is indeed worth learning. It will also require that each individual student gets meaningful feedback, which may also require having to sit with every student and discuss what they have learned, which of course requires time. But the payoff to more meaningful learning makes this worthy of at least serious consideration from the most dedicated teachers.
I was a math major in college. I did not graduate as an honor student, and even had a couple of failing grades. I remember nothing from my later major subjects, but I did enough to graduate. If you judged me by my grades then, you wouldn’t think much of me. But I still learned. Because the time I didn’t spend learning Real and Complex Analysis, I spent reading and learning things I was actually interested in. To borrow the words of Mark Twain, I didn’t let my schooling interfere with my education. I wasn’t a slave.
Don’t let your students be slaves either.
The author is currently a tutor/trainer at StemLab Inc in BGC, Taguig. He has previously taught at UP Manila and FEU Institute of Technology. His views on education are largely influenced by Alfie Kohn, John Holt, and Ken Robinson. He covers this and other topics on the Meaningful Education Alliance page on Facebook and channel on YouTube.