We all have been the victims of our grades getting publicly displayed on the bulletin boards at least once in our life. It doesn’t make much difference when we are adults but it does influence students in pre-school and even high school. This is because they are still amateurs in terms of handling the stress and humiliation that the other people throw at them. At the end of each test, the grades are put out for everyone to see. This may seem satisfying to those with good grades and improve their public image but this idea does not work well for those who have had a dipped performance.
If we have to publicly announce grades then we should also take care of announcing other big achievements of the students, be it personal or academic. This can include sports victories, community service, science projects and other achievements. Open display of grades is a bad idea even if it motivates students for better grades because it instills a sense of unnecessary competition of securing good grades rather than learning the material.
Posting of rankings might drive the academically poor students into working harder but why not post average grades so that they can relate to that and plan studies accordingly. This might receive criticism from those who think that public display of scores is the right of those students who have worked hard with effort and discipline over the term. In fact, I think students should be given a choice whether they want their grades to be shown. This is also because high scorers might go through some unavoidable circumstances which may affect them academically for some time reflecting a bad score. This may coincide with these particular high scorers being weak emotionally. Not all can sustain the stress of public failure and criticism.
Recently a petition was signed by Cambridge University students regarding the historic practice of the university to publicly put the students’ scores on a wall. This wall is so public that it is accessible to even the tourists who come to visit the university’s historic campus. This gives us an idea of how accessible the scores are and to what extent can they be used and made viral.
We all know how the current progression of the world is based on comparisons and who is better and how to get past it. The economy has become the measure of success. This has led to the supremacy of the physical world. But the physical world is always governed by comparisons. If someone feels they’ve become big enough, someone bigger comes around, and that person looks small in comparison. This trivial practice of living is what we are instilling in our youth. We being adults should carry this responsibility of showing them the right path to living a contented life not governed by comparisons.
We often “grade” behavior in school with comments about attitude, motivation or breaking rules. So why not announce who got detention and for what reasons, who was tardy, who cut classes, who was taken into police custody, etc.? Once we start down that path, few would agree it is a useful exercise. Most people would then agree these matters are highly confidential and should not be announced or put up on bulletin boards.
