FIAE Chapter 7

This chapter focused on pros and cons of giving students number or letter grades. It made a lot of good points about why and how grades can be detrimental to students, especially if they earn low grades on their work. I find it interesting to think that in the 70s and 80s a grade of C meant that the student was an average student because it’s the “middle” grade, and it was a good thing to be a C student. Now though, a C is a bad grade and does not mean that the student is an average student. To be considered an average student, one must earn a grade of at least a B. One of the issues that this chapter mentioned is the inconsistency of grading among teachers, not only in the same school, but also in the same department. One teacher might be giving out As and Bs consistently for a particular assignment while a teacher down the hall grading the same assessment might be giving out Cs and Ds. I definitely feel as though there needs to be more unity among grading systems, especially with teachers in the same school. As educators we are supposed to believe that every student has an equal right to an education and the right to learn, yet we don’t offer those students the right to be graded and assessed equally. I certainly believe that every student is different and must therefore be assessed differently, but the same student should not receive two different grades from two different teachers for the same assignment. My high school English department clearly lacked continuity among their grading, and as students we were aware of this. Sometimes we took advantage of it, knowing that one teacher graded a lot easier than another, so we didn’t see the need to put that much effort into our work if we were going to get an A anyway. When students start slacking because they know you are not going to give them a grade that is truly reflective of the work they did then something needs to be done about it. What this makes me realize is that I need to be incredibly aware of how I am grading my students and seek out resources to assist me in making sure that I am grading each student fairly. I also need to remember to give good, constructive feedback to every student so that they know what they need to do to make improvements.