Unconventional Curriculum

  “I wish we weren’t graded on this.”

  “I hope this isn’t taken for a grade.”

“I’m so worried about the grade that I don’t think I’m actually learning.”

At one time or another, practically every student has said at least one (if not all) of these statements regarding the current grading system in education. Then, boy, does Evergreen State University seem all the more attractive with its alternative narrative-style evaluations. But, in reality, is it the best solution?

This college’s approach to academics is rather different than JBU’s in one obvious aspect: the appraisal of the student’s learning progress. While the current letter grade system is an an attempt at objectivity, it is much less subjective than the narrative method; however, it is also much more intensive than this alternative. Evergreen’s programs consist of a very wide range of subjects rolled into one class that is lead more so than taught by a group of professors.

What?

Personally, I do not think that this approach would be the best idea. Maybe it works for some people, I don’t know, but it certainly seems like it would dilute all of the material and make the learning process much less effective in its impression. Although this new way of assessing a student’s understanding of certain subjects appears to prepare one for the “real-world” review that one would receive from one’s boss, I doubt that employers could properly gauge the accuracy of such a subjective grading system. Simple changes in word phrasing could make or break one’s success with employment in the future, whereas letter grades and the knowledge of the college’s programs’ levels of difficulty are much more easily recognized and judged. It would be nice, not having the stress and pressure of making individual grades, but I do not think it to be the wisest replacement of the usual modus operandi.