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    A Proposal To Abolish Grading by Paul Goodman

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    Mickey Kieu
    Goodman proposes abolishing grading in universities and instead using testing solely for pedagogical purposes as teachers see fit. He argues grading hinders teaching, creates an unhealthy competitive environment, and results in cheating. Employers and graduate schools could test applicants directly for specific requirements rather than relying on grades. Abolishing grading would force students to confront learning for its own sake rather than focusing on extrinsic rewards and comparisons. It could also help identify students who may be ready to learn in a different setting or direction than the current academic system.

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    A Proposal To Abolish Grading by Paul Goodman

    Uploaded by

    Mickey Kieu
    2K views6 pages
    Goodman proposes abolishing grading in universities and instead using testing solely for pedagogical purposes as teachers see fit. He argues grading hinders teaching, creates an unhealthy competitive environment, and results in cheating. Employers and graduate schools could test applicants directly for specific requirements rather than relying on grades. Abolishing grading would force students to confront learning for its own sake rather than focusing on extrinsic rewards and comparisons. It could also help identify students who may be ready to learn in a different setting or direction than the current academic system.

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    A Proposal to Abolish Grading by Paul Goodman

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    Goodman proposes abolishing grading in universities and instead using testing solely for pedagogical purposes as teachers see fit. He argues grading hinders teaching, creates an unhealthy competitive environment, and results in cheating. Employers and graduate schools could test applicants directly for specific requirements rather than relying on grades. Abolishing grading would force students to confront learning for its own sake rather than focusing on extrinsic rewards and comparisons. It could also help identify students who may be ready to learn in a different setting or direction than the current academic system.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    2K views6 pages

    A Proposal To Abolish Grading by Paul Goodman

    Uploaded by

    Mickey Kieu
    Goodman proposes abolishing grading in universities and instead using testing solely for pedagogical purposes as teachers see fit. He argues grading hinders teaching, creates an unhealthy competitive environment, and results in cheating. Employers and graduate schools could test applicants directly for specific requirements rather than relying on grades. Abolishing grading would force students to confront learning for its own sake rather than focusing on extrinsic rewards and comparisons. It could also help identify students who may be ready to learn in a different setting or direction than the current academic system.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 6

    A Proposal to Abolish Grading

    By Paul Goodman
    (from Compulsory Miseducation)

    Let half a dozen of the prestigious universities -- Chicago,


    Stanford, the Ivy League -- abolish grading, and use testing
    only and entirely for pedagogic purposes as teachers see fit.
    Anyone who knows the frantic temper of the present schools
    will understand the trans-valuation of values that would be
    affected by this modest innovation. For most of the students,
    the competitive grade has come to be the essence. The naive
    teacher points to the beauty of the subject and the ingenuity of
    the research; the shrewd student asks if he is responsible for
    that on the final exam.
    Let me at once dispose of an objection whose unanimity is
    quire fascinating. I think that the great majority of professors
    agree that grading hinders teaching and creates a bad spirit,
    going as far as cheating and plagiarizing. I have before me the
    collection of essays; Examining in Harvard College, and this is
    the consensus. It is uniformly asserted, however, that the
    grading is inevitable; for how else will the graduate schools,
    the foundations, the corporations know whom to accept, reward,
    hire? How will the talent scouts know whom to tap?
    By testing the applicants, of course, according to the
    specific task-requirements of the inducting institution, just as
    applicants for the Civil Service or for licenses in medicine,

    Goodman. A Proposal to Abolish Grading

    Page: 2

    law and architecture are tested. Why should Harvard professors


    do the testing for corporations and graduate schools?
    The objection is ludicrous. Dean Whitla, of the Harvard
    Office of Tests, points out that the scholastic-aptitude and
    achievement tests used for admission to Harvard are a superexcellent index for all-around Harvard performance, better than
    high-school grades or particular Harvard course-grades.
    Presumably, these college-entrance rests are tailored for what
    Harvard and similar institutions want. By the same logic, would
    not an employer do far better to apply his own job aptitude test
    rather than to rely on the vagaries of Harvard section-men.
    Indeed, I doubt that many employers bother to look at such
    grades; they are more likely to be interested merely in the fact
    of a Harvard diploma, whatever that connotes to them. The grades
    have most of their weight with the graduate schools -- here, as
    elsewhere; the system runs mainly for its own sake.
    It is really necessary to remind our academics of the
    ancient history of Examination. In the medieval university, the
    whole point of the grueling trial of the candidate was whether
    or not to accept him as a peer. His disputation and lecture for
    the Master's was just that, a masterpiece to enter the guild. It
    was not to make comparative evaluations. It was not to weed out
    and select for an extra-mural licensor or employer. It was
    certainly not to pit one young fellow against another in an ugly

    Goodman. A Proposal to Abolish Grading

    Page: 3

    competition. My philosophic impression is that the medieval


    thought they knew what a good job of work was and that we are
    competitive because we do not know. But the more status is
    achieved by largely irrelevant competitive evaluation, the less
    will we ever know.
    (Of course, our American examinations never did have this
    purely guild orientation, just as our faculties have rarely had
    absolute autonomy; the examining was to satisfy Overseers,
    Elders, distant Regents -- and they as paternal superiors have
    always doted on giving grades rather than accepting peers. But I
    submit that this set-up itself makes it impossible for the
    student to become a master, to have grown up, and to commence on
    his own. He will always be making A or B for some overseer. And
    in the present atmosphere, he will always be climbing on his
    friend's neck.)
    Perhaps the chief objectors to abolishing grading would be
    the students and their parents. The parents should be simply
    disregarded; their anxiety has done enough damage already. For
    the students, it seems to me that a primary duty of the
    university is to deprive them of their props, their dependence
    on extrinsic valuation and motivation, and to force them to
    confront the difficult enterprise itself and finally lose
    themselves in it.

    Goodman. A Proposal to Abolish Grading

    Page: 4

    A miserable effect of grading is to nullify the various


    uses of testing. Testing, for both student and teacher, is a
    means of structuring, and also of finding out what is blank or
    wrong and what has been assimilated and can be taken for granted.
    Review -- including high-pressure review is a means of
    bringing together the fragments, so that there are Rashes of
    synoptic insight.
    There are several good reasons for testing, and kinds of
    test. But if the aim is to discover weakness, what is the point
    of downgrading and punishing it, and thereby inviting the
    student to conceal his weakness, by faking and bulling, if not
    cheating! The natural conclusion of synthesis is the insight
    itself, not a grade for having had it. For the important purpose
    of placement, if one can establish in the student the belief
    that one is testing not to grade and make invidious comparisons
    but for his own advantage, the student should normally seek his
    own level, where he is challenged and yet capable, rather than
    trying to get by. If the student dares to accept himself as he
    is, a teacher's grade is a crude instrument compared with a
    student's self-awareness. But it is rare in our universities
    that students are encouraged to notice objectively their vast
    confusion. Unlike Socrates, our teachers rely on power-drives
    rather than shame and ingenuous idealism.

    Goodman. A Proposal to Abolish Grading

    Page: 5

    Many students are lazy, so teachers try to goad or threaten


    them by grading. In the long run this must do more harm than
    good, Laziness is a character-defense. It may be a way of
    avoiding learning; in order to protect the conceit that one is
    already perfect (deeper, the despair that one never can). It may
    be a way of avoiding just the risk of failing and being
    downgraded. Sometimes it is a way of politely saying, 'I won't'.
    But since it is the authoritarian grown-up demands that have
    created such attitudes in the first place, why repeat the
    trauma? There comes a time when we must treat people as adults,
    laziness and all. It is one thing courageously to fire a donothing out of your class; it is quite another thing to evaluate
    him with a lordly F.
    Most important of all, it is often obvious that balking in
    doing the work, especially among bright young people who get to
    great universities, means exactly what it says. The work does
    not suit me, not this subject, or not at this time, or not in
    this school, or not in school altogether. The student might not
    be bookish; he might be school-tired; perhaps his development
    ought now to take another direction. Yet unfortunately, if such
    a student is intelligent and is not sure of himself, he can be
    bullied into passing, and this obscures everything. My hunch is
    that I am describing a common situation. What a grim waste of
    young life and teacherly effort! Such a student will retain

    Goodman. A Proposal to Abolish Grading

    Page: 6

    nothing of what he has 'passed' in. Sometimes he must get


    mononucleosis to tell his story and be believed.
    And ironically, the converse is also probably commonly true.
    A student flunks and is mechanically weeded out, who is really
    ready and eager to learn in a scholastic setting, but he has not
    quite caught on. A good teacher can recognize the situation, but
    the computer wreaks its will.

    Source: Goodman, Paul. Compulsory Miseducation. University of Adelaide eBooks


    Archive. 31 October 2007. <http://ebooks.du.ac.in/eduresources/Resources/books/goodman.pdf>

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