Grading system questioned
Continued from page 1
Continued from page 1
grams of a university. Placement
in honors courses assumes that the
student enters the course with
considerably higher than average
grades or, at least, more than the
normal incentive to learn material.
Theoretically, the honors student,
by past good work and high
grades, has exhibited personal
motivation and does not therefore
need the stimulus of grades to
learn.
INSTRUCTORS, however, frequently grade honor students with the same scale used to rank regular students. Concerned students and many teachers believe honor students, through excellent performance in other courses, should not be graded with the same marks as other students. An "A" in an honors course would not be equivalent to an "A" in regular school courses.
Outside of the school setting, parents and society emphasize the importance of good grades. Parents worry what their friends will think if their son or daughter fails to make respectable grades or accredited schools do not accept them.
Family preoccupation with status, of which good scholarship has become a part, demands quality classroom performance from children. Besides, according to parents, teachers, employers and students, future success depends to some extent upon an individual's scholastic record, his grades.
Students themselves perpetuate and overemphasize the value of grades in many instances. During final week, tension rises. Abnormal silence and quiet hours in living groups exaggerate the passor-fail necessity of making the grade.
GRADES DEFINITELY affect student decisions. Students scan the class schedules before enrollment, not to find an interesting or
challenging course, but to see if the pud courses can be included in their class program. Scholarship programs in many houses and living groups also demand concentrated student academic interest and effort. At times, a student is forced to limit his subjects to pud courses to satisfy school requirements and get the scholarship chairman off his back.
"The present educational system's framework needs more accurate and qualitative methods of describing a student's work," said Robert Ridgway, assistant dean of the School of Education. "This does not mean, a mere change from an 'A-B' grading system to a pass-fail system."
Administrators and educators cite the conditioning influence of the American social and intellectual atmosphere within which education programs must operate.
STUDENTS ARE GENERALLY conditioned before they enter college to systems of grading. Whether they are graded with an "A" or "D," a pat on the back or a pay raise, students and people in general want recognition for achievement.
"If you questioned 10 students, few, if any, would want to abolish grades," said Donald K. Alderson, dean of men. "Students want an indication of achievement. Grades are merely an additional classification of individuals. People are classified in nearly every phase of living."
In "elite" colleges—such as Cal Tech and Purdue, where admission requirements eliminate the average student—it is frequently feasible to have extensive grading systems of pass-fail or no system at all. But at state schools, which admit persons on many levels of intellectual ability, such grading systems are not widely practicable.
Grading systems are generally necessary for the "average" college student, Dean Alderson said. Schools such as KU have such a heterogeneous population that most educational programs must be geared to the abilities and interests of the majority of students rather than the minority. Grading systems such as pass-fail or merit-honor systems do not generally induce learning for most students.
THIS STATEMENT and evaluation is true of the American society and educational setting in general. "It would be great if all schools could establish programs based upon personal initiative, but features and philosophy built into the society prohibit mass conversion." Dean Alderson added.
Thus no solution appears to completely satisfy students, parents, and administrators.
Education administrators say that grades are needed for the clerical record, to provide some means to evaluate a student's performance for interested parents and prospective employers and directors of graduate schools.
Parents demand grades because they want a statement of their child's progress, especially in relation to his peers. Many students need encouragement to learn and want recognition for achievement. Some students become lackadalsical about study when they are not prodded.
OTHER EDUCATORS, parents and students advocate a change in the grading system. The three groups to some degree recognize the undue emphasis placed on making the grade and the strain extreme competition places on the individual.
Various groups propose a "softening" of the system with a pass-
10
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fail, satisfactory-unusatisfactory grading. Others recommend a complete shift to educational rewards through self-learning and initiative.
Opposing groups recognize that recognition must be given for work, but they differ as to what should be recognized and how it should be done.
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VIETNAM HEARINGS: Voices from the Grass Roots ($1.95 Doubleday paperback) is a transcript of testimony given at Mr. Kastenmeier's hearings. "It is," writes the reviewer in Harper's magazine, "an extraordinary cross section of witnesses, committees and individuals who took great trouble and thought to organize and express their opinions."
In a world where the predominant philosophy is "if you can't lick 'em, join 'em," it's refreshing to find a maverick legislator who believes "if you can't join 'em, lick 'em!" Last summer, when Congress refused to hold Vietnam hearings, Wisconsin's Representative Robert W. Kastenmeier held them on his home ground.
Here is what professors, army officers, scientists, physicians, ADA members, Young Republicans, American Legionaires, and people from every segment of American life say about the war. Every shade of opinion is represented, giving full justice to both sides of the question. There's a good deal of food for thought in this unique hearing which The New York Times calls a "new political phenomenon."
“Mr. Lipset takes a dim view of the uprising,” writes A. H. Raskin in the N. Y. Times Book Review. “He sees it as a portent that all universities may be forced to capitulate to the coercive tactics of radical minorities . . . Mr. Wolin seems to feel that such a development would be far from disaster . . . Fascinating.”
Student freedom and student rebellion at the University of California at Berkeley were issues that brought one of the world's most famous centers of learning to the edge of collapse. Of lasting interest and value, THE BERKELEY STUDENT REVOLT: Facts and Interpretations ($1.95, an Anchor Original) was edited by two professors, then at Berkeley, Seymour Martin Lipset and Sheldon S. Wolin. It is particularly interesting because the editors themselves reflect so vividly the split in opinion of the faculty as well as the students.
The N. Y. Herald Tribune, in discussing what they call "The Varsity Snag," says, "The editors . . . seem to have chosen to collaborate precisely because they took opposite roles in the controversy and see its meaning differently. Their selections are indeed scrupulously balanced . . . it amounts to a genuine documentary that merits close attention . . . The merit of The Berkeley Student Revolt, however, is that it is not bound by the perspective of either of its editors. Its selections provide the terms for subsequent debate about the broadest questions that grew out of the free speech crisis."
The two books reviewed above are published by the sponsors of this column, Doubleday Anchor Books, 277 Park Avenue, New York City and Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. You'll find them at one of the best equipped booksellers in the country — your own college store.