Cristian Espinoza

Cristian Espinoza
Professor Bladl
UWRT 1101
Getting a grade
Before I began to read From degrading to de-grading by Alfie Kohn I read the prompt
and thought this should be straight forwards grades are grades and they are necessary for any
class. Of course, I would rather not be graded but then how do I know if I am on a good path to
passing the class. I thought of all of this but it never crossed my mind that it is more important to
learn and understand the material rather than just completing the assignment to get a good grade
and be done with the class. I felt that grades were more important than learning and that is what
the author is telling the reader. Today student are hard wired to care more about grades than
anything else. Now once I have finished read the article I believe that grades are not as necessary
as I thought but it will be hard to change our way of thinking. As I was reading I was thinking
this is all great but things will never change, grades will always be in place otherwise how will
teacher get their students to do the work? No one will ever do the work if its not graded. Now
that I have finished the reading I know that there are other ways to engage students other than
with just grades.