The damage of the perfect grade

Some of my favorite classes are those where the teacher builds a community of learners, where they set aside grades to build a connection with students. However this is rarely the case anymore, this experience seems to be limited to elementary school, where in high school you can just be seen as a brain, with the intention to fill you with the most knowledge possible.

I briefly mention, in my blog post "Cheating the system is easier in a gradeless classroom", where I stated that "Most teachers are aware that this goes on, however the effort and thought that needs to be put in to stop the problem drives them to allow this to go on. "

I am speaking of this from personal experience, I have copied my fair share of homework, or allowed people to "look off" of mine. This act was done out of the sheer need to obtain the perfect grade. I abandoned my morals, knowing that cheating and plagiarism was wrong. I put aside what I knew was right, for the grade. The drive, and the task to obtain the A was damaging not only to my mind, but to my personal being. This isn't healthy, yet teachers still allow this to go on. Does this seem a little dramatic, probably yes, but put yourself in a students shoes. We have had this idea of the traditional system drilled into our heads for years, K-12. The grade is the goal, the end result, this leaves kids with the unhealthy idea that they need to do whatever it takes. Should it be you can't obtain that grade based on your personal skills or "smarts", then cheating, stealing other ideas, finding loopholes is the only other way to achieve this goal. This shouldn't be the way school is. The purpose of high school as stated by Terry Doran on Berkeleydailyplanet.com is " to prepare students for a meaningful life in the 21st century; to be a good citizen, economically self-sufficient and respectful of themselves and others. " When a student is compromising themselves and what they know is right to obtain a letter, a meaningless symbol, how can this be preparing them to be "respectful to themselves and others." A student should be a person who is growing and learning more about them selves as learners and as people. When a teacher is just regurgitating information that is not beneficial to the student. Just because the student can recite the information in the way the receives them the A, doesn't mean they have absorbed it, and truly LEARNED anything.

Maybe I'm not giving teachers enough credit. There has been one way of school, one way of teaching for years now, they too are victims of the systems. I can understand how they don't want to abandon that completely to adopt a completely new way of the classroom. However, to ignore the facts that the traditional way of the classroom is no longer working is the wrong thing to do. Ignoring the problem doesn't change anything, regardless of how much people like me or other influences try to make changes in the end it is up to the teachers and school supervisors themselves to make the jump, take the chance and change to make the school experience more beneficial for everyone.

Here is an interesting article about the negative affects of grades in the classroom

https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/05/the-case-against-grades-they-lower-self-esteem-discourage-creativity-and-reinforce-the-class-divide.html