CONTINUATION

In response to the interesting and thoughtful comments posted to my blog, I should like to continue the discussion by talking for a bit about grading. There are three different activities that are confused together under the general title "grading." These are critique, accreditation, and ranking. Critique is an essential part of any educational process, and it continues at every level of excellence. The teacher who corrects grammatical mistakes in a student's paper is engaging in critique. So is the master violinist who conducts a master class for accomplished violin students, each of whom is already capable of giving a performance in public. All critique is unavoidably to some extent subjective. Itzhak Perlman may want a certain passage played differently from the way in which Jascha Heifetz would want it played.  But althoough there are always several different ways in which a composition can be well played, their endlessly many ways in which it can be simply badly played or misplayed.It does not help to confuse the two.

Accreditation is the process of certifying that a student has performed at a level defined as acceptable for some social purpose. A good example is passing the bar examination. If you pass tthe bar exam you are (at least as I understand it) thereby accredited to appear in a court of law. For purposes of accreditation, it makes no difference whether you ace the exam or squeak by. Evaluation of the performance may be objective, but the accreditation is relative to some social standard set for some purpose or other.

Grading is the process of ranking performances as better or worse. Most often, the purpose of grading is to determine who will receive some scarce reward, such as admission to college, admission to a graduate program, a clerkship, a position at an elite law firm, or the like.  

The only one of these three activities that is intrinsic to the process of education is critique.  Even if, in the immortal words of Garrison Keillor, all the children are above average, nevertheless critique is appropriate. Without it, one simply has self-indulgence.