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Why Can T Everyone Get A's By Alfie Kohn Summary

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School is something some children enjoy, but as grades begin to factor in they lose their love for school through trying to fight to make it through. They have to have a certain percentage and letter grade to pass a class and because of that, they begin to focus more on what they need to do in order to achieve that than their actual education and understanding of the concepts. Grades have begun to increase over the years. Does that mean schooling has become too easy? In “Why Can’t Everyone Get A’s” by Alfie Kohn, he questions the system of grading and standards and the individuals, such as politicians, businessmen, and sometimes even the media, in charge of setting them. Grade inflation is something he doesn’t seem to view as a problem. He …show more content…

Kohn believes grading is a harmful thing for students because it is more of a game with competition. He views grading as something that does not lead to improvements in performance but holds students back from doing their best. He states, “A school’s ultimate mission, apparently, is not to help everyone learn but to rig the game so that there will always be losers” (Kohn 2). Kohn relates school and grading to a game. A game where students begin to try to outdo one another rather than focusing on their academics. It begins to create tension within the classroom and does not focus students on their learning. Kohn believes grades themself create competition and Susan Blum, author of “Ungrading” by Susan Blum, agrees, believing that students treat college as a game. Games are usually thought of as something to get away from the stress of daily life. Blum believes that “Games are fun, but if the goal is amassing points and winning at any price, then game is the wrong model for college- at least if learning, not just winning, is the goal” (Blum 3). She thinks that students view cheating, shortcuts, and cramming as okay because to them school is a game in order to get the best grades. Learning should be the goal for all students but it isn’t because of the pressure to get A’s and B’s which many students view as good grades. Once grades go below a C, students don’t seem to care as long as they pass. Games usually are a good thing but here both Kohn and Blum believe the school should be doing something different so that school and grades aren’t seen as games and begin to encourage the students to focus more on their

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These days students seem to think that if they don’t have the highest grade they won’t be able to get the job of their choice. He also stated that a stats professor got flak for proposing a new system to recalculate the grade point averages. This proposal made it seem that students would dodge the harder classes to take easier

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Individual professors inflate grades after consumer conscious administrators hound them into it” (Staples 1). Another reason they do this is because many students will threaten that they will give bad reviews on the school if they aren’t given the grades they want: “Writing in the last issue of the journal Academe, two part-timers suggest that students routinely corner adjuncts, threatening to complain if they do not turn C’s into A’s” (Staples 1). Students are taking college so seriously whether it's about money or their grades, it’s getting out of hand. Some students are even suing to get good grades.

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In “From Degrading to De-Grading,” Alfie Kohn criticizes current grading systems and their alleged harm to students. Kohn first lists three main problems with grading and then adds seven more. In summary, grading results in students showing little interest in learning, students choosing easier assignments, and less creative students (p. 254-255). The next seven points expose grading as unreliable, distracting, and tedious. Grading also incites cheating and ruins relationships between students and teachers (p. 255-257).

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Students desire to stay up to par with their peers, whether that be socially or in this case, on the academic level. When one individual falls behind, there’s pressure on him or her to pick himself/herself up. At the same time, parents often stress the importance of the student’s grades along with the implications of the student’s future, such as entering a good college or landing a high-paying job. Moreover, the student’s own pride and personal aspirations are put on the line. Therefore, because society applies pressure on the student to perform well in school to admit himself/herself into a prestigious college or acquire a luxurious job, students reevaluate themselves and realize the way to reach that kind of success is not through arguing well but through “a show of information or vast reading, by grade-grubbing, or other forms of one-upmanship.”

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Although this is less than Rojstaczer used Primack provides more evidence and stronger claims that make his article more effective. Primack uses claims of facts by starting with a story and then explaining how grade inflation is an issue at hand. Then continues to talk about Harvard and give statistics on the grade differences between 1950 and 2007. He uses claims of value by explaining how the way grades used to be seen have really changed over the years. A “C” is now not always seen as average but below average to many students.

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In Alfie Kohn’s essay, the argument of grade expectations being too overvalued rests on a chain of assumptions, but can be argued. Alfie Kohn’s essay portrays that he wants students to find a variety of different purposes in school, and questions the idea of grades being too centralized. In detail, Alfie Kohn explains how students go to school not for the right reasons, but for the wrong reasons instead. For example, the author writes, “They’d scan the catalogue for college courses that promised easy A’s, sign up for new extracurricular-activities to round out their resumes, and react with gratitude when a professor told them exactly what they would have to know for the exam so they could ignore everything else” (para. 8).

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“A’s for Everyone” by Alicia Shepard explains how students challenge their professors to receive no less than an A. These students crave and demand to sustain the top grades, despite their efforts not matching the award. Shepard expresses distress and shock through her experiences as a rookie professor. In the beginning of the article, Shepard is first introduced the reality of students pressuring to get an A in a disrespectful manner. She encounters the college undergraduates to boost their letter grade and will not settle for less.

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Sherry goes on and explains why we think it is right to sometimes excuse students who cheat the system because they come from terrible environments, but then goes on to conclude that “most kids don’t put school first on their list unless they perceive something else is at stake.” I think this is why there is a UIL rule at a lot of schools with a “no pass no play” policy. Students who are involved in extracurricular activities then have a reason to strive to pass. Sherry believes that “people of all ages can rise above their problems, but they need a reason to do so.”

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One day, one of Kurt's student desperately says that " I wonder If there's anything I can do to improve my grade?" ; this question made me feel like a high school student who desperately wants to earn good marks in his classes. It is understood directly by the illustrator of the article that a person must face the hectic schedules of school lifestyle to better involve himself into the conduct of a school pupil. Kurt is very dramatic when he mentions that ' there's a weird innocence to the assumption that one expects ( even deserves) a better grade simply by begging for it"; this alleviates the readers of the article to consume that article is written with great grief and sadness. I believe that it's a very un-ordained idea to believe that a person can simply change his grades by begging for it, in front of his/her teacher.

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So all in all, in the process of trying to achieve high grades, student neglect relationships, moralities, and happiness. In essence, the notion that high grades lead to a successful life compels students to primarily focus on grades and sacrifice sleep, family, religious beliefs, and other necessities to

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According to a 2019 report by the Pew Research Center, “70 percent of 13 to 17-year-olds surveyed believe anxiety and depression to be a major problem among their peers, and this same group—many of whom are now the students in our college classrooms—identifies the pressure to get good grades as the most significant factor leading to these mental health issues.” Students are scared of failing and are only fixated on getting a good grade, and they’re not worried about what they’re actually

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Synthesis Essay: Grade Inflation Grade inflation is a problem because it gives students a false sense of their ability to perform. For a student 's future, grade inflation means not having to put in the same amount of effort to achieve the grade they would want from high school and college. Grade inflation can be seen as a negative thing; it increased during the Vietnam War, when students became consumers in colleges, creates an easy path for advanced students, and can negatively affect the younger generation. A possible solution would be to slowly decrease the grade inflation, maybe so minimalist that it isn 't clearly noticed.

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The Grading System: Completely Necessary Grades are an important part of the school system. Grades set the extraordinary students apart from the ordinary ones. In Jerry Farber’s essay, “A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System,” he argues that grades are the only motivation students have in school. Farber even calls it “phony motivation.” He argues that students do not actually learn anything.

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Therefore, their grades in school should be honest in order to reveal what their strengths are and what they need to improve on. No matter what age, society must tell the next generation that winning is not a healthy goal. Instead, when learning, children should focus on making milestones and steps rather than just reaching the ultimate goal. Grades and trophies are just part of that process and are only useful if used with thought and

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In Kurt Wiesenfeld’s article “Making the Grade”, he address the issue that students want a higher grade than they deserve. He goes on to prove this be by giving examples of previous students that he has had and what can happen when students get the grades that they want and not what they deserve. In Wiesenfeld’s article he states that about ten percent of students that take his class do not care about their grades until final grades are over. “You might groan and moan, but you accepted it as the outcome of your efforts or lack thereof,” Wiesenfeld stated.

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