Grades and life

Diary of a B Student 

For a teacher to say that she is not a big fan of grades may seem like a shirking of responsibility.  I don't think so.  This little essay by mystery author Sujata Massey reminds me that one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of grades is that usually a grade is an evaluation of one small piece of a complicated life in isolation from the whole.

Now it could be that a grade on a Hindi quiz is useful in that limited arena: how am I doing in acquiring vocabulary?  Similarly the perfection or non-perfection of a triple chocolate with peppermint birthday cake may merit a grade of A+ or D in the arena of my baking skills.  But, the value of the cake is not only in how closely it resembles the photo in the magazine.  The cake is intended as a gift to the birthday kid and a message about how cherished he is.  If the layers are uneven and the peppermint garnish a bit stale, that might indicate deficiency in the baking department but it does not necessarily make the baker a bad mom.

Life is just so much richer and multi-layered than any letter grade can measure or convey.  I don't like grades because they tempt us to believe that such a small part of our activity is more important than the whole.