American Grading System

The American Grading System: Letter Grades versus Pass/Fail
In the American education system, it is the instructor’s responsibility to efficiently supply their students with necessary information and expertise so that they can excel in that particular subject or lesson. In return it is the student’s responsibility to absorb the information, study, and put forth effort to understand all of the course material presented to them. As the student progressively learns and takes part in assignments and exams, they are evaluated on their efforts and knowledge of the subject. These evaluations allow the instructor to notify the student of their individual achievements or failures, which gives them the opportunity to better understand how they can become
The article “The Case Against GRADES” in the publication, Educational Leadership 69.3 (2011): 28-33, argues that due to the excessive competition of traditional grading systems, students no longer focus on the course material and its importance, instead attention is based around how well they performed in comparison to their peers (Kohn 30). The author of “The Case against GRADES”, Alfie Kohn, is the publisher of fourteen books based on education, parenting, competition and motivation. Kohn debates that the competitiveness of letter grading systems is not healthy because it causes students to focus on doing better than others in comparison to actually focusing solely on comprehending the course material. In this case, achievement and success are what triggers students’ will to learn. Therefore, the lack of this incentive with the pass/fail grading system will negatively alter their will to learn. Although, it is portrayed as if the competition is disrupting all students learning, it is actually causing many to study and work harder to understand the necessary information so that they can achieve and succeed at a higher level than their peers. Even though competition is their motive, they still have to learn and excel academically in order to be competitive. Within the pass/fail grading system there is an absence of competition, which may
For example, students in the nursing field have to memorize and understand information and terms related to the human body. However, the pass/fail grading systems avoid methods such as memorization, which may lead to students not having a handle on the material or how to study effectively. Lastly, employers can only choose a select amount of individuals to join their team. However, to be a competitor, individuals have to be able to sell themselves with their resume, grade point average, attire and personality. To effectively impress the employer, applicants have to be prepared to compete with their peers and to perform at a higher