College Students Need To Toughen Up Analysis

Improved Essays
College Students Need to Toughen Up Essay College Students Need to Toughen Up, Quit Their Grade Whining, is an essay written by Robert Schlesinger that critiques the grading system many college students expect. Robert states that when he was in college, “Do an adequate job, get a c,” was the standard. Schlesinger shows frustration to current college students that expect high grade for doing mediocre jobs. He disagrees with students that believe that their grades should show the amount of effort they put into their work. Although Schlesinger aims the blame of this mindset at students, the true cause of this situation is how these students have been taught before entering college. Colleges should change their grading systems to mimic the grading …show more content…
This is because it is what they have grown up with and have made sense of. Just as kids did 30 years ago with the old grading techniques, kids have adapted to this form. B’s being average is the way that I grew up learning. I understand the frustration these kids have with their professors when earning lower than they are used to. The kids having to readjust to the old way is unnecessary. If the college professors only did what these kids are begging for, they would have no negatives and their school days would go on. These kids would still learn the exact same knowledge. There is no need for the added pressure from the grades. This pressure can result in many effects that can only stunt learning. Not being used to the pressure can cause many kids to struggle with anything from doing the homework to taking tests. The pressure is an obstacle that can be …show more content…
Time can be better spent in the classroom learning instead of helping the kids get used to a new grading system. In order for these students to adapt to the old way of grading they need to rewire their heads. Instead of thinking about effort they need to worry only about results. Professors should instead give the students larger amounts work to do and less tests. People have tendencies to do what they are used to. This is why the professors have a hard time changing how they teach. If these professors could understand all of their students problems with learning a new system they would know that it is much faster to change how they teach over how the multitude of students learn. One of my teachers took this approach by trying to understand how their students learn. She put herself in the position of the kids and ended up learning a great deal. With this newly acquired perspective she pushed the kids learning to a new

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    There are a lot of on-going debates about the traditional grading system. Many argue that the system deters learning therefore; it should be overhauled and/or reformed. Alfie Kohn, an American author and educator that speaks and writes about education and parenting is very much opposed to the traditional grading system. In his essay “From Degrading to De-Grading”, Alfie Kohn argues against it, he claim that students are so grade driven that it reduces their interest in learning, creativity and preference for challenging tasks. Not only that, it also encourages cheating, disrupt curriculum and waste teachers’ time.…

    • 604 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The article “From Degrading to De-grading” written by Alfie Kohn, is a very persuasive and informative text. By reading his article you could tell Kohn is intelligent, gets straight to the point, and supports his claims with convincing evidence. Kohn knows how to get his point through text and attacks every idea from different angles. He was particularly obvious that he was against the letter and number grading system. Kohn mentioned many reasons why the current grading system is inappropriate for the student’s education, such as: grades don’t tell much about a student’s knowledge, grades reduce the drive to learn, and grades reduce the drive to challenge…

    • 108 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Professor Jerry Farber’s article “A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System” has the intention of persuading college students that the current grading system is not effective by using rhetorical questions to imply its inefficiency, pathos to provoke the reader, and specific diction to help the article resonate with the audience; he even proposes a new grading system. Faber’s solution to the current grading system is to change it entirely, and, in place, have students receive credit or no credit for classes. In this system of grading, receiving a no credit would not have a penalty on the student’s record, but, instead, the records would only have classes where the student earned a credit making this different from the pass-fail grading system.…

    • 1163 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kohn’s article “The Case against Grades” (Kohn, 2011) effectively captures the anxiety that most students have about grades. “In fact, students would be a lot better off without either of these relics from a less enlightened age” (Kohn, 2011) Kohn writes. I agree with Kohn’s position in this article because there were many days in high school where I remember skipping due to the fact that I didn’t fully understand what was being taught to me. I, in turn, grew anxious about not being good enough and started failing.…

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A Lazy A Suzanne E. Fry writes “Some students feel that success is owed to them; after all, they did not spend thousand of dollars a year not to yield results”(Fry 10). In her article, she brings out her view that relaxing grades or the lower performance needed to achieve good grades, cause the quality of education to suffer and teaches student they don 't need to work hard to succeed are completely valid; it is seen in the way student pick classes today and their time spent studying. Suzanne E. Fry in the article, Grade Inflation argues that the inflation of grades going on in higher education is harmful to all involved. Fry points out that when A’s are easier to achieve students are taught that they don 't need to work hard. She shows that…

    • 891 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Not only will some students go their whole life believing no one is more intelligent than themselves, but others will not receive an education worthy of their degree. However, the author seems to understand students are not the only ones at fault. Colleges are also scrambling to change their names to appear more prestige and competitive. Nevertheless, striving to become something they are not, and working to offer unique majors, only adds the mess. Grade inflation also lightens the load on students.…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Has anyone thought of school and been like “Hmm, professors might give them a better grade if they complain to her about how they feel they did a better job at that assignment?” Or how about, “Wow there is so much free time from studying that they should just all go get drunk?” Says no student ever. But truthfully after reading “Grade Inflation Gone Wild” by Stuart Rojstaczer and “Doesn’t Anyone Get a C Anymore” by Phil Primack that is apparently the mentality that some people involved in school system has adapted, students and professors; which will be discussed in this essay. Whoever heard of grade inflation?…

    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article, "A's for Everyone!" Alicia C. Shepard discussed her distress over the number of students that expected to be handed an A at the university she taught at. She claimed that it was becoming a normality for the majority of the class to receive A's; a B was no longer considered a good grade. The intended audience for this work of writing would be teachers, students, and parents. It can relate to teachers by the struggles they face, persuade students to not argue with their teachers about grades, and communicate to parents that sometimes their children are not deserving of higher grades.…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Non Scaled Grading System

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Supporters of the non-scaled grading system have been advocating for the removal of the scaled grading system. However, the scaled grading system is more advantageous than the non-scaled grading system. The argument that the pass fail grading system helps to asses’ students’ basic command in a better way is not accurate. One of the advantage of using the scaled grading system is its importance for the selection of students for the college admission. The scaled grading system gives an opportunity for college recruiters to pick good students.…

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Most of the parents become irate and urge them to study, not knowing what the problem. At a few schools, some teachers are using a software that sends letters to the parents of their students learned, their weaknesses, and how to improve them. The parents who received the letters felt more involved with what their child learns (Grinberg). If the parents know what their student learned and how well he/she does in class, that can become an accessible way the parents can know about what their child is learning and help them if they struggle or deal with problems. In summary, standard based grading can help a parent connect to their child’s…

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Steven M. Cahn in his article Guiding, Grading, and Guarding, is about several aspects in the life of a Teacher. How to make students comprehend the session’s teachers taught, the problem with the grading system, and the trouble a professor faces controlling a classroom they fear. This article could not be any more accurate about the problems we face in our school systems. Dr. Cahn describes how great teachers not only motivate their students, teach the material at hand, and organize a classroom, but also provide a vision of excellence. Describing how teachers have to enter a new classroom with a goal of the progression of its students in mind.…

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    When schools look to hire a freshly graduated and certified teacher, they request that new hire prospect’s college GPA and transcripts. So if that went away, incredibly talented and knowledgeable teachers could lose their edge over those who may be more ignorant and ill-prepared. Knowing this as a student would make one come to the realization that it isn’t very important to get the better grades. Imagine America’s elite schools being taught by professors who barely made the grades. An English professor who never really got a firm grasp of formatting, but still got a diploma.…

    • 578 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    People should do this because they aren’t effective, they have not improved achievement, and they cause stress for children and teens. I hope that one day these problems will have nothing to do with standardized tests, and I believe that if you and other people think we should change the way students take standardized tests, then it could possibly…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Keith M. Parsons’, “Message to My Freshman Students.” , He shows that he is very biased. To me the points he tells don’t prove anything, as they’re invalid. For the first time ever in his career, he is teaching a freshman course. Parsons has heard about the incoming freshman and believes that he is ready for what’s soon to come.…

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    At some schools, the grading method is students are given a long-term assignment and must produce a project and oral presentation to show what they learned. I disagree with this method because some kids may be shy/have anxiety, it's easier for teachers to help students if they can see where they messed up, and it's easier to test all the students on one lesson instead of all lessons at one time. All schools should stick to the traditional way for grading students. The traditional way is more simple and less time consuming for teachers and students. What is your biggest fear?…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays