Are Grades Helping or Hindering?

Schools are probably one of the most competitive environments for children. Students are always competing for the best grades and to outsmart others in their class. Grades have been a debated subject as they have many purposes in a student’s life. They may serve as a prospect of feedback, reflecting on your academic progress in school. It may also allocate resources for future application such as college. But in our high school’s case, grades support a hierarchal power system that diminishes an individual’s standing. I interviewed ten sophomores at my school about how they defined grades after receiving their first-semester transcript. Their responses went as follows: 40% believed that their grades were a reflection of their performance. However, the other 60% felt that it was a determining factor of where one stands in the school population.

Grades’ basic and universal purpose is for feedback where it testifies a student’s achievement and progress. In elementary school, we received checks, outstanding, and check pluses to symbolize how we were doing in a certain class. However, unmindful of the symbols, many students received comments directing them and helping them understand what went wrong. Nonetheless, in high school, we have certain benchmarks society forces us to reach that we do not take into account improvement comments but simply stare at that “B.” Grades were made to keep record student’s development, not to hinder their self-confidence.

The 60% who considered grades as a ranking in society, which is extremely adverse for my school. It has a highly competitive environment and according to a sophomore taking a Precalculus class, “Students are always trying to outsmart one another.” Grades are meant to be an evaluation, but, it has become a hierarchy or even a sense of satisfaction. If you don’t meet the expectations of being “smart”-which are inevitably determined by your grades- then you are fit into a plebeian rank. Ironically instead of grades reflecting your progress and achievement in school, they start to reveal your worth and status. This may be because as we develop mentally, we begin to understand the true nature of relationships which inevitably determines our friendships, likes/ dislikes, and it even comes down to our mental health.

It all comes down to how you and your society look at grades. Is it a matter of reflection or does it automatically place you in this discriminatory hierarchy? This debate of grades will continue, however, according to many students our school has chosen what its definition of grades are.

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