The Problem of Grades

The way that we grade is so loaded with assumptions about our students, and therefore is not helpful to them in most cases. Teachers are almost stenographers in the shorthand of grades, grading, marking. They don't really have any facility with that language necessary ly. And they also don't have any control or command over that language. When we reduce these complex interactions into things like o or a slash a minus, or a minus slash b plus or upper third, all of these strange demarcations thatreally don't facilitate the communication to feedback that we're trying to have.