should america abolish its Traditional Grading system

by Bella Almvig, Reporter

Opinion

In the U.S. alone, 30.7% of students have a GPA average of less than 3.0 (out of the traditional 4.0). If there are about 15.1 million high schoolers in the country alone, around four million students fall under the “below average” category.

Throughout our entire time in school, we are told that the only way to succeed is through achieving good grades. Yes, I will admit that getting good grades is important, but have we ever considered success for students outside of their grades? Maybe if we try evaluating students based on their character and personality instead of intellect, we can drive success through everyone.

I’m sure every student has struggled with at least one subject during their time in school. The truth is that most collaborative curriculums are tailored to students who are more social and have faster learning speeds than their peers who may need more time. Maybe if there were a curriculum based on the pace of an individual’s learning and their unique type of intellect, more students would get better grades and greater self-efficacy.

A study from Harvard University in 2019 found that students with personalized learning systems ended up having more self-confidence in their academics compared to students who were taught with traditional curricula. The researchers performed a trial on 1st-12th grade students, teaching them with traditional curricula with a grading scale of A-F. Then they eventually moved into more personalized learning of which subjects and fields the student is good at instead of a traditional grading scale of A-C. Researchers confirmed that confidence is critical when it comes to academics.

If we look deeper into how our traditional education system works, teachers bombard students with the idea of tests and finals that make even students with high grades squirm. Besides understanding the content—confidence is the key factor in scoring high on summative assessments that impact your grade.

The main problem is a lot of students who tend to score lower on tests, knowingly or not, have been proven to have some sort of insecurities regarding their academic performance. If students have low confidence, teachers should remind and encourage students that not everyone learns or comprehends material at the same speed. By this, I also hope that school administrators would focus on the needs of students who may need more time. While it is understandable that some teachers in the country are looking into tailored learning, we also have to face the fact that we are still a long way from transitioning into an alternate method of learning.

The number one flaw in our grading systems across the country is that it tends to favor students who are fit in the “smart” category, and the ones that are considered “dumb” are given an extra hard time because of their grades. However, no one is “dumb”— everyone has their own intelligence.

Howard Gardner, a psychologist from Harvard, created a theory of nine different types of intelligence. These range from Naturalistic, Musical, Logical, Existential, Interpersonal, Linguistic, Kinesthetic, Intrapersonal, and Spatial Intelligence. Just because a student fails to excel in one or two subjects does not mean that they are “stupid” or “dumb” in how the traditional curriculum labels it. If more educators and peers are willing to be more open-minded about a student’s personal strength, this will increase self-confidence within learners, which can result in higher grades and success.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the various authors in this paper do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Kamiak High School or The Gauntlet.

Sources

“The Limits of Curriculum Choice.” Harvard Graduate School of Education, www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/19/03/limits-curriculum-choice.

“Why Confidence Is Important for Achieving Better Grades | Honor Society.” Www.honorsociety.org, www.honorsociety.org/articles/why-confidence-important-achieving-better-grades.

Ballane, George. ScholarWorks Understanding of Self-Confidence in High School Students.

“Why Students Lose Confidence | Tomorrow’s Professor Postings.” Tomorrowsprofessor.sites.stanford.edu, tomorrowsprofessor.sites.stanford.edu/posting/909. Accessed 6 Jan. 2022.