BY DAVID MASON—March 16, 2021, Academe Blog
In January of 2020, I decided not to grade anymore.
It wasn’t a nod to the chaos of a pandemic, which had not yet affected the United States. I had stumbled onto Jesse Stommel’s “How to Ungrade,” which pointed to a body of work on the topic. On the realness of the problem, Alfie Kohn’s summary of decades of research was particularly convincing:
- Grades tend to diminish students’ interest in whatever they’re learning.
- Grades create a preference for the easiest possible task.
- Grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking.
I had to confront the possibility that my own commitment to traditional letter grading indicated that I didn’t much care what and how students learn.
On the other hand, I couldn’t ignore that students without letters in the expected places could find themselves with fewer registration options, holds on their financial aid, or other bureaucratic obstacles. I figured that, whatever I did, I would have to type grades into the computer system. Stommel’s response to this problem grabbed me by both ears, shook my head fiercely, and then slapped me: “So, I ask them to grade themselves.”
On the first day of class in 2020, the syllabi that I handed to students had no tables showing how many points were possible for each thing they might do, no sum of possible points for the semester, and no correlation of points or percentages with letter grades. I told students that first day that when the time came, they would tell me what letter grades to type into the computer.
At midterm, the time came, and rather than calculate grades, I met with each student to talk about class—what students thought was working and not, and why. Also, to talk about how I was doing. I can’t say how honest students were on this point, but I learned some things that I might not have. At least, it seemed to me that how effectively a professor teaches should matter to a student’s grade and that such things as financial burdens, family members who need care, illnesses, and pets who pass away should matter—and the person best equipped to appreciate the impact of such things is most certainly the student, not me.
Finally, I asked each student for a grade. Considering the various sheepish, skeptical, heavily qualified responses that followed, I must surmise that letter grades have formed people who feel, deep in their bones, that it is given to someone else to sort them into piles and that their valuations of themselves are immaterial.
I built a tool whereby students can anonymously tell me what they think of this not-grading. Here are some assessments from three semesters of this practice:
- “I felt like my well-being was being thoughtfully considered, and I remained motivated to complete all my work without feeling excess stress.”
- “It definitely made me feel like the goal of a more equitable power structure in the classroom was becoming closer to being realized.”
- “Thanks for allowing me to explain my situation!”
- “It’s definitely refreshing to grade each other while coming to an agreement on a grade.”
This last comment refers to the fact that I also ask students to grade me. Anonymously. Every week. I’ve hoped that by subjecting myself to letter grading, I might earn back some trust that grades surely erode. Because they do not go into an institutional file, to be used to propel or to arrest my career, these “me-grades” are institutionally trivial. However, I see these grades, each week, with short comments on my in-class performance. These evaluations are remarkably kind. But students do tell me that I’ve rambled, that I’ve shown up unprepared, or that I’ve overlooked their concerns, and I see the metric each week—a B+ or C, for example—that marks each student’s valuation of me. Those grades have inspired in me a trust in students that did not exist in my earlier career.
bell hooks is probably most responsible for the need I feel to “un-grade.” After two decades in the profession, I can’t unsee the great gap between academia and the ethical ideals it claims. I have to “professor” differently or stop professoring altogether. In Teaching to Transgress, hooks offers me something aspirational:
Progressive professors working to transform the curriculum so that it does not reflect biases or reinforce systems of domination are most often the individuals willing to take the risks that engaged pedagogy requires and to make their teaching practices a site of resistance. (21)
I need the risk of ceding grades to students. A minimal risk, for me, since my not-grading hardly resists the system. If nothing else, my disavowal of grading constitutes a resistance to my self and its inclination to reinforce the systems of domination that have been built to affirm, nurture, and protect its prerogative. To the extent that I would like to make my practice a site of resistance, I can certainly begin by making my practice resist me.
I’m convinced that abolishing letter grades would make the world a better place, but I’m not abjectly naïve. I teach small classes at a small college. My substitution of direct and substantial personal interaction with each student is not practical for everyone. But we can’t ignore the case against grades. If letter grades work against learning, if they contribute to the stratification of society, if they harm students, we have to “do different.”
Guest blogger David Mason is associate professor of theatre at Rhodes College. He is editor of the journal Ecumenica.