I don’t know which is more interesting: this blog post about grading or the comments that are almost universally negative. I suspect most of the commenters didn’t bother to read the Alfie Kohn article she referenced that included research showing how grades can be detrimental to real learning. In fact, many of the commenters seem to confuse grades with learning, just as many people confuse education with learning. This comment seems typical of the tenor of the remarks:

By all means remove grades! After all, it is extremely efficient to produce illiterate high school graduates who, never having failed a year and fragile egos intact can then assume their wrongful place in society! Drivel continues to triumph.

By all means, let’s use grades to degrade students in preparation for a future of degrading work and failure. Clearly, those students who do not receive good grades are at fault rather than a system that rewards the ability to play the game.

I’m reminded of my undergraduates at an elite university who protested project-based, collaborative work because it was difficult to identify how to get an A. They were the game players: tell me what to do to get an A and I’ll do it. Challenge me to think and reflect critically and I’m lost. They had never failed at the grading game; I worried that they would NOT be prepared when they encountered a world where employers expected them to be able to think rather than simply perform.

If you dig into the comments, you will find a few who do agree with the writer but they are immediately silenced as ivory tower extremists who do not live in the real world.