Marking, Grading and Ranking

There are not enough hours in the day or days in the semester to comprehensively and concisely answer the plethora of questions regarding grades in school. 

Assessments, grading and student learning were prominent themes in the many conversations I had with my school advisors over my two week practicum and I sit here still with many more questions than answers. 

It is not unknown that marks, grading and ranking create stressful environments for students and teachers alike. The easy answer would be to say, "get rid of those things!" However, we cannot. If you ponder on it within the schooling system (up to and including high school) from the top down where the top is university admissions, it is certainly impossible to get rid of grading. Even if we hypothetically remove that overbearing aspect of schooling, we need to be able to assess students to measure their learning. In the purest sense, this is what grading should be - an assessment of student learning. 

In my own experience, grades for the most part didn't mean much to me. I did really poorly in university during the first couple years of my undergrad. If I wasn't failing, then I was getting somewhere in the 50s and maybe 60s. I recall in the first semester of my second year I received a test back in my probability class. If I remember correctly I had gotten a 90 (I believe it was a 36 or 37 out of 40). I remember getting it, looking at the mark and then putting it in my bag as I did with all my tests. I had a profound moment after I put it in my bag - I realized I was doomed. I felt the same about that 90 as I did my other tests that I failed. The grade was supposed to be a reflection of my learning or my performance but whichever it was, I realized I didn't care. And if I didn't care, then why was I there? I started improving my grades in the latter half of my third year and all through fourth year when I found out there was a minimum GPA required in my program. Extrinsic motivation right? I do remember something from that year and a half though. I struggled mightily in a certain professors statistics class - in one of them according to my math I should have failed but he gave me a 51 which I was not happy about. In fourth year I had him again for a time series analysis class. I was determined to do well. I remember studying extremely hard and I actually got an A on the first test. I remember feeling so happy with myself. There was something there, it was that hard work and reward relationship. I think that's something that all humans can attest to and find common ground in. It can be about anything, not just grades. 

John Sarte and Sherri Hughes are touching on this but there still lies this underlying question of how can we get students interested in the content to motivate them to get to that place of working hard. If it's not that, then what motivation can exist to push them there? 

I'm sure I'll be asking this question my entire career God willing I become a teacher one day.