B - Grades, Credits, Diplomas.

Another significant problem is the out-dated notion of "selling"
grades, credits and diplomas and undermining the "sales" of
marketable skills, training and knowledge.  Students are much
less interested in a series of disjointed courses in various
isolated subjects than in gaining experience that will assist
them in coping with life.  Only the formal educational academy
must equate education with a number of courses; but life is not
like that!!  About the most accurate thing that can be said of a
person holding a baccalaureate degree today is that he spent
roughly four years on a college or university campus.  That's
about the only thing he will have in common with others who have
accomplished the same objective.

The notion that educational and intellectual worth and potential for
success are reflected only by academic credentials is glaring
evidence that personnel in the educational establishment do not have
the ability to recognize when and how learning takes place.
According to them, it takes place only in rigidly structured
environments called classrooms where compliance and docility are
rewarded; creativity, curiosity, critical thinking and enthusiasm
are punished. It appears as though all teachers have received a
mandate to teach only one thing: conformity. The grading system
conditions students to obey instead of to learn. Traditional
educators also manifest a peculiar arrogance that suggests that the
only worth-while activities are those that receive "credits" that
eventually earn a certificate of some sort, which society has been
brain-washed into believing is more important than what a person can
do. Due to this over-emphasis on grades, credits and certificates,
students have little time nor inclination to develop a thirst for
intellectual exploration of ideas, a primary characteristic of a
scholar.

The report card, at one time, may have served a helpful purpose,
at best, by reporting, albeit extremely simplistically, student
progress.  It is now, and has been for too long a time, regarded
by observant (meaning a minority of them) students and teachers
as an instrument in a system that has little relationship to
promoting learning.  Students get high grades when they give
instructors what they want, which usually means the students
learn less.

               ```````````
     Young man in chauffeur driven limousine to older man driving
     economy car while stopped at stop light: "Professor Enright,
     remember me? Dickie Atwell. You flunked me in Business
     Administration."

               ```````````

A Charles Schultz' "Peanuts" comic strip monologue humorously but
accurately represents fallacies of the use of grades:

     A "C"? I got a "C" on my coat-hanger sculpture?

     How could anyone get a "C" in coat-hanger sculpture?

     May I ask a question?

     Was I judged on the piece of sculpture itself? If so, is it not
     true that time alone can judge a work of art? Or was I judged
     on my talent? If so, is it right that I be judged on a part of
     life over which I have no control? If I was judged on my
     effort, then I was judged unfairly, for I tried as hard as I
     could.

     Was I judged on what I had learned about this project? If so,
     then were not you, my teacher, also being judged on your
     ability to transmit your knowledge to me? Are you willing to
     share my "C"?

     Perhaps I was being judged on the quality of the coat hanger
     itself out of which my creation was made . . . Now, is this
     also not unfair? Am I to be judged by the quality of coat
     hangers that are used by the dry- cleaning establishment that
     returns our garments? Is that not the responsibility of my
     parents? Should they share my "C"?

     (With pleased expression) "The squeaky wheel gets the grease!"

Too many students are inhibited by the fear of the punishment they
expect in the form of grades. Every normal human has the full
potential to learn if the opportunity and environment are right.
Positive environments are created through positive experiences not
possible under a punitive grading system. Complicating the problem
are inconsistencies in the manner in which instructors evaluate
students. Some may give an "A" to all who score over 90%; others to
the top of a statistically derived bell-shaped curve. Others may
give no high grade or give only A's and B's--nothing below.

In the case of the "squeaky wheel getting the grease," my daughter,
Stefni, experienced a representative example: a history instructor,
new to the school and consequently unaware of those who aspired as
"grade grubbers," evaluated Stefni's report on Hawaii with, as I
recall, a B. Another student received a C for a report on
Washington, D. C. The other student, the "grade grubber," happened
to be the daughter of another teacher in the school. Through some
political maneuvering, her grade was changed to an A. Inasmuch as
the educational value system is erroneously based on grades, Stefni
became discouraged that she could not excel on the basis of
accomplishment rather than politics and wisely soon thereafter
transferred to an alternative high school where evaluation was based
upon accomplishment of objectives. She graduated a year earlier than
she would have in the traditional lock-step system.

Personality and politics appear to be greater determinants of high
grades than accomplishment. This is demonstrated frequently when
friends switch papers. The student who has consistently received
high grades puts his name on the paper of one who has consistently
received low grades and vice versa. The supposed evaluation of the
papers results in an evident evaluation, not of the papers' quality,
but of the instructor's past experience with each student. The paper
of the consistently low student with the name thereon of the
consistently high student receives a high grade. Conversely with the
other paper. Typically, the A student's actual paper, with the D
student's name on it, receives a C and the D student's paper
receives a B.

Roger W. Holmes, a seasoned college professor who recognizes the
shallowness and irrelevance of many aspects of the traditional
academic system, wrote an essay, "What Every Freshman Should Know,"
published originally in the November 1940 issue of The American
Mercury and reprinted in Harrison Hayford and Howard P. Vincent's
READER AND WRITER (Houghton Mifflin, 1954), which includes this
commentary on grades:

     You will be told that marks are important. But they are a
     meager indication of a student's worth. Someday we shall have
     the courage to scuttle the whole marking system, and with it, I
     hope, will go that awful and meaningless sheepskin. Marks
     provide the outward and visible sign of the whole academic
     tradition. I wish every college student might come behind the
     scenes and watch his instructors doling out grades on papers
     and bluebooks. We have such curious foibles. The odds are
     definitely in favor of a paper read after rather than before
     dinner. A typewritten paper stands a better chance than one in
     longhand. And that factor of length! I know one student who got
     himself an A by sandwiching a dozen pages of economics notes
     into a long term-paper on Beethoven. It is a matter of record
     that given the same set of papers twice we will grade them
     differently. Given the same paper, moreover, various teachers
     will assign it grades ranging from D to A, even in mathematics.

Averaging a collection of grades from D to A, or when converted to
grade points 1 to 4, will result in a different grade when converted
to percent. For example, twenty math or English projects received a
series of grades, randomly chosen here: 2, 2, 3, 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 3,
4, 3, 2, 4, 4, 1, 3, 4, 2, 4. These average a 2.5 or between a B and
C. The percent, however, is 62.5%, considered a D by the grading
practice of many teachers, which states that 90% to 100% is an A,
80% to 89% is a B, 70% to 79% is a C, 60% to 69% is a D and below
60% is an F. A more extreme example is an average 2.05, slightly
above a C; but 2.05 divided by 4 is only 51%, an unequivocal failing
grade. This apparent incongruity can be remedied, of course, by
using the "bell-curve" that determines grades based upon percentages
of students receiving scores so many "standard deviations" from the
mean and presupposes that as many students will fail as will receive
A's and the majority of students in a collection will receive C's
and be branded as mediocre, another incongruity.

According to Louise Hay, author of YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE (Coleman,
1985), the cause of almost all emotional and social problems is the
inability of individuals to accept themselves and their perceived
lack of self worth. Schools seem to exacerbate this problem through
such grading practices. By designing their grading system to
predetermine that only a few select individuals will receive high
marks, schools make the majority of students feel inadequate and
consequently damage self esteem and add to the increasing number of
social and emotional misfits in society.

So arbitrary are grades assigned in high schools that college &
university admissions offices now tend to ignore grades received
in high school and place almost all reliability upon the S.A.T.,
A.C.T. or similar college entrance exam scores.

Several years ago, a report by the National Education Association
advocated the elimination of the traditional report card.  The
practice must be too entrenched to be remedied.  The NEA report
called grading " .  . a cramping, distorting system  .  .  . a
nuisance to good teaching and learning  .  ."  It mentioned that
students are almost forced to work for a grade, which leads to
anxieties that are detrimental to learning.  The valedictorian of
a College of Letters and Sciences at a California university who
addressed a Phi Beta Kappa banquet is quoted in his  diatribe:

     "The main thing was to learn and to display that learning as
     well as possible to my teachers. I became a subject to a
     paralyzing mental machinery: if I did not study 12 hours a day,
     I was a failure. If I did not compose at the speed of 1000
     words an hour while writing a paper, I was a failure. If I did
     not go through the required reading at 33 pages an hour or
     more, I was a failure. I pushed myself to maintain my quota
     until I was more enchained than a Russian factory worker in the
     1930's . . . Instead of encouraging me to form human bonds with
     my fellow students, the grade-oriented system of the university
     made it possible -- and sometimes comfortable -- for me to be
     totally caught up in the prison of my own mind. . . Grades
     should be totally abolished. . . Moreover, people at the
     university do not need to become subject to such an inhuman and
     impersonal judge of performance."

This student commentary is consistent with observations of
concerned educators who recognize that the amount of academically
imposed requirements far exceeds what anyone can do with
intelligence.  The Student Health Service of another university
interviewed its top (meaning those receiving the highest grades)
Freshman students and found that not one had ever had a date,
none enjoyed social interaction with peers and  some were
suicidal.  Now, that's just not normal behavior!  Are we
educators inadvertently or deliberately causing students to be
concerned about grades at the expense of normalcy???


               ```````````
     "A great character knows how to live as well as to think."
          - - -David O. McKay

     "The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure;
     and he that hath little business shall become wise."
          - - -Ecclesiasticus

     "Leisure is the mother of philosophy."
          - - -Hobbes

               ```````````

The entire grading process puts teacher and student in an
inappropriate adversarial relationship. They become enemies instead
of the friends they should be. Students should be convinced that the
teacher is an encourager, a helper, one dedicated to the enhancement
of learning rather than one who metes out punitive valuative
reports. Others such as prospective employers, college and
university admittance officers, peers, even the student himself and
other societal entities ought to be the judges of student
achievement. A teacher should be an advocate for the student as a
coach is an advocate for an athletic team or an operatic singer.
When teachers judge instead of teach they create a wedge between
them and the students antithetical to a healthy learning
environment. Instructors can make corrections, helpfully critical
comments and recommendations for improvement, but it should be left
to others to render an evaluation. In such an improved system, the
instructor is indirectly evaluated as well, encouraging greater
commitment on his part to improving teaching and learning
effectiveness. As a victim of the traditional system, I used to quip
to my students, on whose papers I had made corrections in red
pencil, that the grade for each paper is determined by placing it
under a color sensing meter. That is only slightly more ludicrous
than the traditional system that encourages the pursuit of grades,
credits and diplomas at the expense of the pursuit of learning and
skill development.

Research is finding that the evaluations of student accomplishment
(grades) have not properly reflected student ability. A Ford
Foundation study at Brown University found that students admitted
with reservations, as "admission risks" according to grades received
in high school and on college board exam scores, did just as well as
those whose high school grades and college board scores supposedly
predicted would be academically successful. It also found that the
"risk" students do as well in their chosen careers as their
previously apparently more capable peers. Furthermore, Dr. Donald P.
Hoyt concluded from his research, "The forty-six studies examined
were grouped into one of eight categories [including] business,
teaching, engineering, medicine, scientific research . . . Although
this area of research is plagued by many theoretical, experimental,
measurement and statistical difficulties, present evidence strongly
suggests that college grades bear little or no relationship to any
measures of adult accomplishment."

This is evidently similarly true at other levels of the educational
spectrum. According to the former fifth grade teacher of a major
league baseball player, the baseball player could not read. To
prevent the baseball player's not being deprived of other valuable
experiences, the teacher discouraged the school administration from
placing him in a special education class. The former teacher
believes that the baseball player's sisters did most of his school
assignments through high school, where he did well in athletics and
had to maintain a minimum grade point average for eligibility.
Regardless of his lack of scholastic ability, as measured by grades,
he has proven that he has the abilities and has achieved the
accomplishments for which society is willing to pay a high price.

Conversely, one high school principal boasted that he had been the
valedictorian in both his high school and college. I recall that he
had a most anemic personality. He eventually lost his teaching
position as a consequence of his having promoted damaging gossip
about his fellow teachers. How smart is that? Another high school
valedictorian obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree at a Los Angeles
area graduate school, worked as a set designer for the motion
picture industry for a few years, then ruined his abilities as a
consequence of drug addiction. His family since reported that he
lost his home and is "living in the street." How smart is that?

If grades don't matter to life, then, why do they matter to
teachers?

Academic grades have little to do with the "real world." They
certainly do not evaluate those qualities that matter: creativity,
inventiveness, leadership, citizenship, compassion, aesthetic
sensitivity, interpersonal communication and understanding, artistic
talent, vocational success, family happiness and honesty. Neither do
they evaluate other facets of ethical behavior nor enjoyment of
life. They tend to force students to emphasize acquisition of facts
and consequently stifle the development of the portion of the brain
that is intuitive, is creative and generates ideas. Space will not
permit discussion of the findings of research related to the
recently emerging theory of mental bi-camerality, researchers about
which have written in support of less emphasis on the grade oriented
traditionally academic, which, they find, starves the development of
the whole thinking apparatus. They observe that students who obtain
the best grades demonstrate the least creativity. Students concerned
about grades in a content centered curriculum are pressured to do
that which will eliminate the risk of a poor grade, so they learn to
conform, consequently stunting initiative to think: they only
memorize and have difficulty making a mental "transfer" from one
discipline to another.

David J. Schwartz, in his book, The Magic of Thinking Big
(Prentice-Hall, 1959) comments on grades:

     Grades are based upon how well one remembers and is able to
     regurgitate the information back to the instructor that the
     student has taken in during the course. But success is not
     based upon the ability to use the mind as a warehouse.
     Frequently the storage load encumbers creative thinking.
     Einstein was once asked how many feet are in a mile. Einstein's
     reply was, "I don't know. Why should I fill my brain with facts
     I can find in two minutes in any standard reference book?"


        ``````````````````
     "A child does not need a lightning fast mind to be a scientist,
     nor does he need a miraculous memory, nor is it necessary that
     he get very high grades in school. The only point that counts
     is that the child have a high degree of interest in science."
          - - -   Dr. Edward Teller

          ``````````````

Schwartz continues:

       . . But let's be sure we understand what education really is.
       Some folks measure education by the number of years spent in
       school or the number of diplomas, certificates, and degrees
       earned. But this quantitative approach to education doesn't
       necessarily produce a successful person. Ralph J. Cordiner,
       Chairman of General Electric, expressed the attitude of top
       business management toward education this way: "Two of our
       most outstanding presidents, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Coffin, never
       had an opportunity to attend college. . . We are interested
       in competency, not diplomas."

Incidentally, a report contained in the January-February 1987 issue
of California Real Estate, "Wealth Concentrated Among Top Twelve
Percent of U. S. Families," supports Mr. Cordiner's observation:

     In its first assessment ever of wealth in America, the Census
     Bureau reported that, based on statistics gathered in late
     1984, . . the wealthiest 12 percent of American families had a
     median net worth of $123,474, accounting for 38 percent of all
     household wealth in the country. Forty-eight percent of this
     group had earned college degrees.

More NON college graduates than college graduates were among the
wealthiest.  This statistic tends to contradict the boasting of
college  administrators who have said for years that a college
degree is essential for monetary success.  It also is incongruous
with students' claims that the reason they seek degrees is to
increase their earnings potential.

There is the very real possibility that, in certain academic fields,
acquisition of a college degree limits one's income potential
because it limits his aspirations. If, for example, a person majors
in history, he will aspire to become a historian; in art, an artist;
in music, a musician; in philosophy, a philosopher; in education, an
educator; in journalism, a journalist. This is true of almost any
academic liberal arts subject area in which the Ph.D. is the
terminal degree. Neither of these professions pays that which the
top money makers earn. Such a college graduate's income potential is
limited because his self image is limited to that to which he
aspired when he chose his college major. Most educators' income
potentials are limited by their not having acquired different self
conceptions. Even those educators who achieve prominence in their
respective subject areas do not enjoy the earnings potential of
those whose self concept was entrepreneurial, whose self images were
not limited by underpaid college professors as models. If they were
to have devoted similar time and energy to merchandising as to their
academic professions, they probably would have become wealthy, but
they needed to develop different self images.

That grades and diplomas earned in school have little to do with the
"real world" is illustrated by the experience of a talented
columnist on a major city's newspaper staff, who, after the security
of several years as a successful journalist, admits to having failed
the sixth grade. He never adjusted to Academia's formalities and
found his entire schooling as a "jerky, disorganized prowl, destined
to end abruptly." Although at age ten he was able to engage in
entrepreneurial endeavors of buying and selling candy at a profit,
preparing and selling a neighborhood newsletter and having his own
paper route, he was an academic disaster. Obviously, he learned what
he successfully applies somewhere outside of the painful educational
establishment.

     "Above all recollections is the horror of those classes.
     Multiplication and division were Sanskrit. Being called upon to
     answer was cold terror and struck me dumb. It was impossible to
     hide. I was tall and skinny and my legs stuck out in the aisles
     like oars.

     "When teachers zeroed in on me, I rose trembling, stuttering,
     saying anything -- then going hot with shame under the giggles
     and tongue-lashings that followed. At times like that I would
     solace myself with daydreams about how it would be when I grew
     up -- living as a fur-trapper, deep in lonely woods, far from
     scorn and human contact . . . "

How inhumane!! Talk about man's inhumanity to man! Rather, teachers'
inhumanity to students! Teachers' personalities must be similar to
those of medieval torture chamber wardens. Because of the power that
the grading system provides them, authoritarian personalities are
frequently attracted to the education profession. But these
grade-oriented and grade-dependent educators do not stimulate
learning. More educators who are compassionate, caring and
non-judgmental are needed. But the "Catch-22" is caused by the fact
that these ideal personalities are too sensitive to survive in the
blackboard jungle.

Too often a student with promise has his desire for continuing
education through life squelched by the restrictive and punitive
school environment. If schools do their jobs effectively, they will
provide the student a means of evaluating his own progress, without
demeaning and insulting grades from teachers. The student, if he is
equipped for life, will know how to measure his own understanding of
a concept or proficiency in a skill either by his attempts to apply
them toward achieving objectives or through comparing his "doing"
with those who possess greater skill and understanding.

Educational relevance is a strong motivating force. Students can
relate to an academic discipline when they know how it will help
them accomplish objectives, and frequently those objectives have
nothing to do with "earning" grades, credits and diplomas. They have
more to do with exhibitable marketable skills. Some of the highest
paid professionals are salesmen that have developed abilities in
self expression and who can relate well to other people. They don't
need a certificate that says they can. They demonstrate it. I taught
a talented former music student who was earning his way through
college by playing trumpet in some of the leading dance, musical
show pit and studio orchestras in the city. Realizing (at the time)
that proficiency in a musical skill by itself was no guarantee of
economic security, I was attempting to convince him (before I
learned better) that he should pursue getting his liberal arts
college degree. He responded, "Nobody is going to ask to see my
degree. All they will do is say, 'Get out your axe, man, and let's
see if you can cut it.'"

A community member of a college vocational education committee,
who represents agri-business interests in the area the college
serves,  participated in a committee discussion about the
feasibility of offering a certificate in heavy equipment
operation.  He warned the college personnel on the committee not
to send someone to him with a certificate ("piece of paper").
Based upon his experience with other such applicants, he said,
"I don't want that guy."

At the same meeting, a bank branch manager said his bank wants well
groomed applicants who demonstrate they have personality,
enthusiasm, willingness and ability to learn. He cares little about
whether or not they have a certificate of some sort.

Proficiencies ought to be the only criteria on which evaluations are
based. If a student satisfies a set of educational objectives in a
subject, he should not have to continue in a class in that subject
just because it is not the end of the grading period. He ought to be
provided another set of objectives in another class. Too often the
only objectives have to do with the amount of time spent in class
without reference to what a student learns.

Another former college student was compelled to drop out before he
completed earning a two year associate degree because he could not
satisfy the arbitrary requirements in English and algebra.
Nevertheless, he took as many courses in aeronautics as were
offered, for which English and algebra were not prerequisite. He has
been a successful crop duster and tour plane pilot whose earnings
double my income in a good economic year and exceed mine in a bad
year. He since obtained a flight engineer's license. And he didn't
even bother to memorize the mathematical times tables!

             ``````````````
     When the newly hired salesman wrote his first sales report to
     the home office it stunned the brass in the sales department.
     Obviously, the new "hope" was a blithering illiterate, for
     here's what he had written.

     "I seen this outfit which they ain't never bought a dimes worth
     of nothing from us, and I sole them a couple hundred THOUSAND
     dollars of guds. I am now going to Chcawgo."

     Before he could be given the heave-ho by the sales manager,
     another letter came along.

     "I come here and sole them a hafa million."

     Fearful if he did and fearful if he didn't fire the illiterate
     peddler, the sales manager decided to dump the problem in the
     lap of the president. The following morning the members of the
     Ivory Tower were flabbergasted to see the two reports on the
     bulletin board -- and this note from the president tacked
     above.

     "We ben spendin' two much time tryin to spel insted of tryin to
     sel. Lets watch those sails. I want everybudy should reed this
     cus I think every one of yous should "GO OUT AND DO AS HE
     DONE."

                  - - -Author Unknown

Formal public high school completion was not needed by several of my
successful associates. One is affiliated with me in the real estate
business. She certainly is not uneducated, she merely did not
complete formal education. But this apparently was no handicap. She
expresses herself well. Her income probably exceeds mine, and I have
the equivalent of nine years higher formal education. She has a
sufficient grasp of English and communications skills to have served
as an officer in the regional Toastmaster's Club. She comprehends
and continually exercises the mathematics principles of the real
estate business and continues to learn the many changes in the law
necessary to renew her license periodically. No diploma is required;
she is as successful as most real estate practitioners and more
successful than many with college degrees.

Another friend without formal high school training owned a
distributorship with a major oil company. To illustrate his ability,
soon after he became a distributor, his experience with gasoline
flow made it possible for him to calculate mentally the pressure,
velocity and volume relationship of gasoline through varying sizes
of pipe faster than the company engineer could do it with a slide
rule.

Another high school drop-out raised her family of six children, then
went to college and, at age 48, achieved her goal of becoming a
registered nurse.

The reader is familiar with the names of many other prominent
individuals who had little or no formal education and whose success
did not depend on grades, credits nor degrees: Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison,
Alexander Graham Bell, Andrew Carnegie, Sandra Day O'Connor, Albert
Schweitzer, Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, Pearl Buck, Albert
Einstein and many others, including the originator of Boolean
algebra, George Boole. Mr. Boole's academic contemporaries did not
limit his opportunities because he failed to obtain diplomas; he was
invited to join the mathematics faculty of Queen's College in
Ireland in 1849.