Some professors are letting students pick their own grade
It’s safe to say that if you went to high school in this country you likely grew up on the traditional A-F grading system, which meant that if you turned in a stellar, well-written, effectively sourced, organized essay you probably got an A. If you didn’t read the book, didn’t start writing until the night before, or perhaps writing wasn’t your strong suit, you maybe pulled a C. While essay writing can be daunting, most would agree that the overall system was fair. If you didn't follow the teacher's instructions, you misspelled words, or just out right cheated—you probably didn't deserve the better grade.
I recently took a writing course in college where the professor substituted the traditional grading system for what is called a labor-based grading contract. Absent of any political bias, or true understanding of why this was being inserted in the classroom, I was immediately skeptical of how effortless it sounded.
This new form of “ungrading” gave students the opportunity to choose their grade. Sounds pretty sweet right? Essentially, we were asked to come up with a set of agreements with our instructor about how we should be graded. If we wanted to get an A in the class, all we had to do was complete the big assignments and do all of the extra credit work. Otherwise, our grade would automatically default to a B.
You might be wondering, 'what if your work wasn’t that great?' Maybe you missed a couple things, didn’t feel like putting in the effort that day and you had to turn in mediocre work. Fortunately for you, it wouldn’t hinder your ability to still get an A.
So, if you were one of those students who did the bare minimum, all you had to do was sit back, relax, make sure you did the assignments asked of you regardless of paying any mind to the quality of your work and voilá—you secured a better-than-passing grade. The only way it seemed we could fail the course was if we did absolutely nothing at all. For those of you who already graduated college, you might be thinking you missed out big time.
Except, nothing is ever really as good as it seems.
So, who came up with it?
Asao Inoue is a professor of Rhetoric and Composition at Arizona State University who created the idea of labor-based grading contracts which he detailed in his book “Labor-based Grading Contracts Building Equity and Inclusion in the Classroom.” Inoue, who has focused his research on social justice theory and anti-racist teaching practices, said in a blog post, that teaching to a standard written English is unfair and may cause students to feel anxious and insecure.
“Inoue’s objective is to change the ways professors think about language and white language supremacy, and to start a revolution within the American grading system,” Humboldt State’s student news publication The Lumberjack reported in an interview with Inoue.
In First-Year Composition, a book about composition theory which I had the pleasure of reading as a grad student, Inoue concludes his chapter by stating, “Asking students to labor in a writing course and then judging them on the quality, is not just unfair and dishonest—it can be racist.”
For many students and professors it may sound great. If something is called 'anti-racist' how could it be bad for you?
Why is this a problem?
Let’s start with the word literacy which seems to have become increasingly obsolete in today’s society. For centuries the word literate or literacy meant well-educated, well-read or learned. It meant that not only could one read and write well, but they could also comprehend what they were reading and writing. Today, if you look up the definition of literate it has been diluted to simply mean to be able to just read and write.
The expectation for students to be able to understand what they are reading and writing is all but diminished from the education system at almost every level. In Delphine Ryan's "The Decline of Western Education" he states:
"Parroting, mechanically repeating or paraphrasing texts and facts, without understanding and critical thinking, so as to pass exams or get a certificate or appear intelligent in life or at work, or on the likes of social media, seems to be the order of the day."
Despite what many professors will tell you, labor-based grading contracts aren't a viable solution to poor literacy rates in our schools and racism isn't the cause of the illiteracy. There are plenty of other origins to look to like the uptick in diagnosed learning disabilities, the rise of social media, a lack of school of choice, the list goes can go on.
It is the very implementation of these contracts that are causing an already broken system to deteriorate faster.
Rather than uphold a set standard of English, these grading contracts are merely a tool universities are using to promote racial division and reshape the definitions of literacy. They lower literacy standards so that students not only feel smarter, but actually appear by the university’s standards to be performing quite well. Instead of legitimately dealing with the unprecedented illiteracy rates plaguing American junior colleges and universities, professors are just swapping out quality for labor and calling it a solution.
In a previous article I explored the ongoing decline in Western teachings in California’s university system, but I left out a significant cause for this decrease in quality education. It's important to note that radically left professors and institutions want to normalize the degradation of Western teachings and language. By inserting these new grading systems they might imagine they are genuinely helping minority students, which Inoue claims the contracts are designed to benefit, but by ignoring and excusing incompetent and deficient work, they are actually just setting students up to fail. It's easier to ignore problems by pretending they don't exist.
College composition professors like Inoue suggest that labor-based grading systems help minority students by eliminating the assessment of grammar, vocabulary, writing mechanics and structure. But isn't lowering the standards of a course insulting to these students’ intelligence? Aren’t these professors and institutions just assuming that because of the color of their skin they may or may not be good at writing and therefore the quality of what they produce no longer matters? Furthermore, when has lowering the standards in any capacity or category of life, made anyone perform better or more importantly want to perform better?
These contracts punish those that value and produce high-quality work with less effort and reward those who don’t. In addition to incentivizing laziness, young, impressionable students are filled with the idea that the quality of their work no longer matters.
Rather than be taught to critically think and to write and read proficiently, students in these courses are forking out thousands of dollars to a university to pick their own grade and be taught that aspiring to learn proper English is racist.
Why are writing courses making the switch?
As part of my program I am required to take a graduate course called "teaching first-year composition" where we learn how to build a writing course for a first-year college writing class. While building a course that teaches students how to write across all career types, we are also taught to allow students to be involved in the construction of the course. Our professor tells us to consider what the students want to learn at every step of the way and that their personal experiences are essential to the writing process. Additionally, we are taught it is bad for professors to have all the power when it comes to grading and organizing a class. Rules and structure are bad and ought to be replaced with a system that gives power to the students. Inoue's creation, is the supposed antidote for this power dynamic.
In lieu of improving competency, professors seem to want students to turn their attention toward the self, or whatever the latest social justice cause is that day, and to simply reject authority wherever they see it. When these professors prioritize social justice and the feelings of students over producing literate writers and future educators, they actually harm the students' abilities to critically think, to strive for greatness and strengthen their work ethic.
After extensive research and personally experiencing the grading system myself from both a student and professor's perspective, it would seem that universities just don't want students to succeed outside of the classroom walls.
Wrapped up as usual in compassion, inclusion and equity, Inoue’s new grading concept was almost enticing wasn't it? However, the contract is undoubtedly designed for students to fail in the real world, where labor-based contracts simply do not exist, where you do not get to pick your grade and where the quality of your work is certainly important.
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Great writing! Well thought out and position clearly stated. How sad that the system rewards mediocracy.
Great read!