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发表于 2004-7-26 13:49:12
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issue55"Competition for high grades seriously limits the quality of learning at all levels of education." 追求高分严重的限制了教育各阶段的学习质量。
Ever since students go to school, whatever fundamental school, middle-school or high-school, even after harsh competition they finally go to the ivory towers, there is always one thing bound with them--grades. Some students like grades, while others hate them. Contemporary educationalists and educationists are arguing whether the competition for high grades seriously limits the quality of learning at all levels of education. In my opinion, the lasting existence of the grade system itself proves its justification to some extend, yet, overzealous pursuit to the grades, of course, deviates the destination of educational system.
In the realm of education, grade system, weather in the form of percentage in China or in the form of A, B, C, D four levers in America, has been a standard to classify students into several groups: the excellent, the good, the pass and the failed. As far as I am concerned, the grade system meets the need of educational system at least in two aspects.
First and fundamentally, grade can reflect the effectiveness of education in all level. Common thing tell us it is useless to do anything without a standard. Though the feedback of grades echoed from students, the teachers can know which course are better mastered and which course are weakly learned, which of the students are needed to be further informed, so as to improve their teaching and help those failed or unlearned. Till now, since there is no other more well-chosen and well-grounded system comes into being, the extant grade system as a standard should be still put into use. In fact, grade now is often served as an effective litmus test to test the effects of both teaching and learning which definitely play an active role in education.
Second, grade system can ignite an atmosphere of competition and compel the students to fight for a higher education. All the parents and teachers like those who get high scores in the examination. The higher grades one gets, the higher praise he/she get from parents and teachers, while the poorer grades one gets, the higher criticism one gets. In China, especially in high-school, there is always a roll call rearranging students from the grades the students get, the higher one get, the former his/her name is put ahead. Furthermore, the grades are directly connected with the college-entry examination which is critical to their future careers of higher education. So students all fight for a better grades over others so as they can get a better higher education. In short, it is the grade system ferments the competition between students and this competition is beneficial to heighten the morale of students for learning.
While it is instructive for grade system to run its way, overemphasis of the grade system is increasingly compelling the education system at stake. Moreover, ironically, this educational hot potato brings two disadvantages which spring from just the two aspects of the advantages of grade system forgoing.
First and foremost, overemphasis the importance of grade can mask the eyes of the students insofar as they wrongly and unconsciously misarrange the grades as their pursuing targets and ardent in the arguing with the teacher on whether the grades can be added one or two in this place or another. That scene is fatuous but does plays everyday in our school in China. Moreover grades result in sever critical events, such as cheating, plagiary in the classroom, bribery to the teacher for adding scores. On the other hand, the leading status of grades drives students in a state of nervousness which tense and relax with the ebb and flow of scores. Furthermore, the grade system leads a gap between students. Those higher grade owners will not help the lower grade owners for not only unwilling to sacrifice time and energy to explain, but also fearing to uncover the secret of their success. All those cases are detriment to the education.
Secondly, the aim of education is not for the silly and meaningless grades in the paper, too much attention can degenerate the education as a whole. Generally speaking, the aim of education is to foster people for our society in all fields, but the grade system somewhat oppose to this aim. For instance, every year in China, there are amounts of students with high grades but low ability going to the society. And many of them who get higher grades in the universities are bogged down in the real society. Who or what should take the responsibility of these consequences? Undeniably, the grade system plays a harmful role, at least in partly. After all, society needs person with ability, not person with numbers.
In sum, the grade system is a double-edged sword which can be not only beneficial but also pernicious to the educational system due to rightly or wrongly usage. If we apply the “sword” rightly and appropriately, it can benefit our educational system, but if we overstate the importance of it and even misuse it, it can mislead us to the opposite way, and finally threaten our educational system. |
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