Should Alphabetical Grading Be Taken Out?

Grading is one of the ways to determine a student's level of performance academically.

I grew up and met the system that way. The truth is, sometimes it hurts, other times it gives joy.

For a student or parent whose child is performing well, grades A, B, and C bring satisfaction and happiness, while grades like D , E , and F bring pain and disappointment.

Personally, I have experienced several moments when my grades motivated me and several moments when grades made me cry.

One thing I noticed with humans is that we often attach emotions to things, and that's the reason why we get hurt even when we are supposed to pick up the challenge and step up instead.

I don't really know the reason why schools adopt the method of using certain letters to grade, but left to me, I feel it is okay.

Let's take emotion out of the picture. By merely seeing a particular grading alphabet, a student already knows whether they did well or not.

I like alphabetical grading because it gives a student the liberty to know how well they passed or how badly they failed, so that they can do better next time.

It's more like it gives joy to those who worked hard by making them proud of their performance, and pain to those who didn't, so that they can step up.

Aside from this, it can also show a student whether he or she is measuring up or not. For instance, a student scores credit ( C ) in a test, then writes a test on that same subject next time and scores a Distinction ( B ), which shows clearly that the student is growing in that subject.

There are so many advantages attached to alphabetical grading, and I am not ignorant of the disadvantages, too.

However, if you ask me to pick, I will always prefer alphabetical grading. If we say school should just use pass or fail alone without stating the grade, how can we tell how well or how poorly a student performed?

And how can we tell whether or not the student is improving or not? As a parent, one won't even know whether the child is doing well or not.

Just imagine your child brings a result home and you just see pass or fail, wouldn't that make it look like the school doesn't know what they are doing?

Someone like my mother would immediately go back to the school to ask for an explanation.

If it's a pass, we need to know how well the student passed, whether excellent, very good, or good. And if it is a fail, let's know whether it is just pass, fail, or poor.

The problem most people have is emotion, and it's high time we stop putting emotions into things and call a spade a spade. This will spur growth. But if all we do is consider how students or parents whose children didn't perform feel, then I fear we would eventually reduce the quality of education.

N.B: All Images Were Generated By Gemini AI