Grade Equate to Being Well-Educated? Does Matriculation

¶ … GRADE EQUATE TO BEING WELL-EDUCATED?

Does Matriculation Equate Being Well-Educated (NOTE: THIS CAN BE CHANGED) NOTE: MY BELIEF IS THAT A GOOD GRADE OR HIGH DEGREE DOES NOT NECESSARILY EQUATE BEING WELL-EDUCATED Draft approximately 1000-word (3-4-page) narrative essay response prompt: Use a personal narrative state views response assigned readings education.

This story begins at a time when Mark, Betty, Martin and I used to spend a lot of our free time together. We loved to engage in intellectual discussions where we debated for hours on certain topics that were the source of discussions for scholars. Mark began a discussion on education which took an interesting turn since it helped us see how grades relate to the education quality of individuals. One thing that we all accepted was that education plays a major role in providing individuals with the necessary knowledge, skills, abilities and other competencies that are needed for them to participate effectively in the society and the economy in general. Education also helps them to improve their lives in areas such as political interest, civic participation, health, and happiness. Studies have shown that the educated usually live longer with their quality of life being better than the uneducated population. They also participate more actively in the community and in politics and commit fewer crimes since they become self-reliant and depend less on assistance by the society. Alfie Kohn (2002)

posits that the inflation of grades has been there for a long time and this is backed by the research studies that are stated in the book. The data from these research studies shows clearly that despite the education level of an individual, getting high grades does not mean that they are well educated.

We also agreed that having a good education substantially increases the chance of an individual to get a well-paying job. Individuals who are highly educated are usually less affected by the trends of unemployment that are affecting all other people in the workforce. There has also been a great increase in the number of students who graduate from university and looking at the data that shows that the grades of undergraduate student have been increasing, the high grades do not mean that the individuals have received quality education. Moreover with the concept of increased inflation of grade, the grades themselves speak very little of the education quality.

Once the next evening we began discussing some of the methods being used by instructors to motivate students. Martin gave an example of how one instructor asked students to do assignments which contained actual questions that came in the final exams. Betty topped that by giving an example of a professor who asked students to do assignments in the form of survival cards. These were basically cards which were collected by the instructor but never marked. During the final exams, the professor would give the students back their survival cards which they could then use during the exam. This meant that those students who had actually done the assignment had an added advantage over the others who skipped the assignment or classes. This raised an interesting discussion as to how instructors were more concerned with students doing assignments and attending classes than with them actually studying and passing the exams.

Mark, one of the seniors, mentioned that according to Close (2009)

, grading should be used as a method of sorting out students for employers by showing that the student has complete mastery of the course content. He posits that grades should not be used to reward or punish students. He continues to give the difference between the purpose of grades and their consequences. Grades motivate certain behaviors such as instigating improvement but this is not their desired purpose. However, Crede, Roch, and Kieszczynka (2010)

state that grades can be used in a different way to motivate students towards behaviors that improve learning such as class attendance and completion of assignments. This is the concept of motivational grading.

Mark went on to say that Kohn (2002)

, and many other scholars on the contrary say that though grades are a good motivational tool, they should not be used for that purpose. This is because these methods only guarantee that the student attends class, completes assignments and passes exams. However, this system of motivational grading does not give a proper representation of test scores since the students who comply with the instructor's practice by attending class and completing assignments get an unfair advantage in exams making them attain higher grades. The students who do not comply with the practice are punished by being denied of this advantage thus they end up with poor grades. This system is widely in use in our educational system and scholars have argued that it is morally unacceptable and it leads to grades that do not represent the actual performance of the students.

This discussion went on and Mark revealed that in a study that reviewed the acquisition of some of the essential knowledge and skills essential for complete participation in the society found that most of the students who scored high grades scored poorly in the test to measure their life skills. It was also found that girls outperformed the boys in all countries of the study with the gap being largest in Slovenia, Finland, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. This has led scholars to argue that education should not be the scale used to measure someone's success in life. Neither does it give an accurate reflection of their learning and development. However, they agree that education is the backbone of the life of each individual person and that it equips them with some essential skills and knowledge for life. We all agreed that this was significant evidence to back the argument that getting good grades does not necessarily mean that a person is well educated.

Since it was getting late, we called it a day and postponed the discussion for another day. On the next day, I met with Mark and Betty who mentioned that one important thing that they had forgotten to mention in our previous discussion was that there are several reasons that have led to the rising grades of students over the years. One important reason was that instructors have become more reasonable and give students assignments that are designed towards making them succeed rather than confusing them by concentrating on what they do not know. The assessment procedures used by instructors have also improved considerably allowing them to be more lenient on the students thus enabling them to score better grades.