Are Grades Necessary for Learning?

Are Grades Necessary for Learning? In a short answer, no. Grades are necessary for grading and assessments. Grades are used by teachers to assess a student's ability to adhere to the content standards that are being assessed and whether or not they have demonstrated their ability to meet those standards. Grades are also necessary for, funnily enough, grading. Before the days of the rubric, many professors and teachers graded items according to their own criteria. Perhaps you had a teacher that was a stickler for proper formatting? Whereas another professor could care less about formatting and cared more about your ability to answer the prompt? Or what about the professor that disagreed with everything you wrote and thus would drop your grade because of this disagreement? Grading itself has as many varieties and expectations as the number of teachers currently present in the entire education system. But are grades necessary for learning? No. I believe that if grades were completely removed from the equation it would alleviate stress for the students but would create more stress for the teacher. How would you keep track of 38+ students? If grades were removed another system would eventually take it's place. Perhaps students would do better in school. Or perhaps they would do worse because they no longer had to worry about the grade accountability. I am not sure. I do believe, however, that if grades were completely removed it wouldn't make a difference as to whether or not a student would learn more or less. A student's learning ability is largely due to personal drive, motivation and a good, solid teacher. The physical grade does not matter. The teacher matters. The learning experience matters. The student's drive matters. Grades do not accurately reflect everything that is present in a student's brilliant mind. I have always wondered, where is the grade for creativity? Where would big picture perspectives go under the homework column? How would bravery be categorized? There are so many valuable assets in this world and I do not feel grades accurately reflect the value of these assets nor do they account for them. If the grading system was completely removed, maybe we would embrace a one-on-one exit interview between the teacher and student, where the student had to present what they had learned in that semester and how it affected them as a human being. We are not educating kids. We are not educating students. We are educating human beings. Why not place more value on our own humanity?