The problem with grading is just that: a problem. Receiving a grade as a student feels quite
natural––it is an impending doom and gloom that hangs over the heads of all––but, as a student grows from
child to teen to adult the definitiveness of grading changes. Spelling, history, and science exams
demanded a form of memorization; a cut and dry of right and wrong, something more swallowable, more black
and white. Through the advancement of schooling a student becomes less graded on right or wrong, but on
how either right or wrong is deduced, on how a student is able to critically think. It is in this facet
that grading almost becomes somewhat empty or completely irrelevant; how is a teacher to grade a student’s
thoughts or thought process? Grading becomes a contrived process on critiquing form of what can be
considered the universally accepted “how to” on writing a college paper. Bloom solidifies this idea of the
problematic grading structure: “Each and every grade reflects the cultural biases, values, standards,
norms, prejudices, and taboos of the time and culture (with its complex host of subcultures) in which it’s
given. No teacher, no student (nor anyone else) can escape the tastes of their time” (Bloom 363). During
my undergraduate, I can safely assert that from professor to professor my papers were similarly
accomplished in skill and scope; yet, every once in blue semester I’d have a professor who I just couldn’t
get to give me the “A” I knew I deserved. Something just wouldn’t click between my writing and their
thinking; and while that is fine, it raises a level of injustice being served to students who just can’t
click with their teacher.
Sep 222015