This article was written by Alfie Kohn and included here with the author’s permission.
You can tell a lot about a teacher’s values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to ”motivate” students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students’ marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they’re going to have to know this for the test as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready.
Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers’ students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading.
