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Zachary Yockey

English 134

Professor Garcia

9 January 2024

College Education

Nothing in culture stays stagnant for too long, and education is no exception. As

humanity develops and advances, so do the things and ways that we teach. With the world

changing in so many ways, the way we educate and the culture around education itself has

changed significantly as well over the past half century. Education’s current and continuing

changes have come in a myriad of ways and sources, but notably in terms of academic grades

and their values, who is seen as responsible for student learning, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Institute of Educational Sciences, the percentage of adolescents in the

US aged 18 to 24 actively enrolled in post-secondary education has increased from 25.7% from

1970 to 40.0% in 2020. (“Percentage”) In terms of individual students, this represents an

increase of 11.6 million additional people and competitors. As the number of post-secondary

students in the US continues to rise, the education system has changed the ways that a student’s

skill is measured in order to be able to handle the overwhelming amount of people.

In order to appraise students, the modern de facto way is through the prescription of letter

grades. This A-F grading scale came about through the necessity of a school to communicate a

student’s standing “objectively” to a third party, and since the early 1940’s has been the standard

for most of America. (Schinske). Assigning a number or single word to a student’s performance

inherently removes the qualitative nature of a student’s skill; however, it returns with a clean and
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clear value that can be understood at face value. The culmination of a person’s individual grades

gives rise to a value that students nowadays know all too well: the Grade Point Average/GPA.

In the common American grading system, an “A” more often than not represents a 4.0

GPA and is correlated to a percentage score of 90%-100%. A 3.0, a full ¼ lower in GPA than an

“A” rests the next on the ladder, being a “B” with a typical percentage range of 80%-89.9%.

These two grades are seen as “good” or “decent” grades in the modern era, and everything below

(Grades C-F) is typically viewed negatively. By comparison however, towards the beginning of

grading in America, Harvard adopted a system that gave unofficial grades in a similar manner,

being divided every 10%, although their official values were only recorded in three categories:

Failed, Passed, and Passed with Distinction. In this system, those who were seen as distinctive in

the class were those who achieved a final percentage from 70%-100% (Durm)

Taking all of this into account, Harvard, one of the most prestigious universities in the

United States, originally had a grading system in which a modern C- was seen as a superior

ranking. Yet in the modern era there is such a pressure to get grades at the absolute peak of the

scale. Looking into the effect this has on students, I asked Professor Kevin Coulombe from the

Cal Poly Physics Department about his experiences working as a high school teacher. When

asked what changes he has seen in grade perception, he provided the following response:

When I was in high school, there wasn't as much pressure to pass kids. It was, “Hey, you

did C work? You're getting a C.” … and you move forward, and that was okay. Whereas

now, I taught students who, I’d give them an A- and they'd be like, “Cool, we can't do

that.” It's like, “Why not?” They're like, “Well, that's the Asian F.” I was like, “What do

you mean?” “Like, my parents will ground me.” (Coulombe)

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As Coulombe’s story describes the pressure students are under to get nothing shy of the

best grades, it also shows the cultural and familial pressure on students, with parents offering

repercussions for bringing home something as “low” as a 90%-93% (which would be in the top

30% of Harvard’s highest grading section at the start of the 20th century!). Continuing with how

families reacted to the grades he had given students, Coulombe recalled having several meetings

with parents who “threatened and tried to strong arm [him] into giving better grades” which he

attributed to his dedication to grade integrity. “I gave out D's, I gave out F's, and got threatened

to be sued and had some very confrontational meetings with parents because I was destroying

their children's ability to get into X school when they, their student, shouldn't be going to X

school.” (Coulombe)

In response to this pressure from students, parents, and universities, teachers overall have

been seen to give higher and higher grades throughout the usage of standardized grading. “Grade

inflation”, as referred to by Healy, is the ongoing practice of giving students higher and higher

grades than before regardless of an increase in actual performance. (Healy) As demonstrated by

Healy’s data displayed to the right in

Figure 1, the average GPA across

post-secondary education has

continually risen since the 1930’s

with some minor dips. (Healy) This

trend in increased grades then

creates a feedback loop in which

students are given better grades than

Fig. 1 “Average GPA over the time period 1930-2006 as a
before, which raises the average and function of school type.” Healy, Christopher, Teachers
College Record, March 4, 2010.
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the top scoring values, in turn increasing the “target scores” for universities, causing students and

families to ask for higher grades to match the new expectations.

Grade inflation isn’t the only trend changing education, as one of the largest things that

has changed in education is who is deemed responsible for student success. Coulombe stated,

“There's definitely been a cultural shift from learning as a kind of community thing, where the

parents at home and the students themselves are responsible for the burden of education, to now,

it’s been kind of put on the teacher in an unfair way. As if it's the teacher's fault that students

aren't doing well, and it's the teacher's

fault, and it's all on the teacher, and there's

no … household accountability.”

(Coulombe)

Coulombe went on to discuss the

cartoon shown in Figure 2 to the left,

Fig. 2 “Teachers Then and Now.” Daryl Cagle,
Cagle Cartoons, July 30, 2013
“Teachers Then and Now” by Daryl

Cagle, and that it exemplifies the current behavior that is the shift from asking “Why didn’t you

do better?” to the students, to asking it now to the teachers. (Coulombe) With teachers bearing

the pressure to assign good grades, and taking the blame for assigning and poor ones, Education

is slowly shifting into a territory where students that don’t care to do much work and historically

would have failed, are passed simply for the sake of passing students.

In my interview I asked whether or not schools nowadays are properly preparing students

or merely running kids through the system, to which Coulombe responded, “I think what we're

seeing more and more and more, is that there is so much pressure to graduate students that all

[teachers are] doing is just a lot of graduating.”(Coulombe) This line was said in the context and
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with the impression that places of education have shifted away from being a place of learning

and development, and instead are becoming just a check box that just takes time. By shifting the

attention of learning onto the made-up score you want to get, and by placing the blame of any

unwanted scores on the person teaching you, places of education are drifting farther and farther

from the ideal of being a place to learn and actually prepare for life. One change that has yet to

become widespread, but might help to preserve the goal of education, would be to remove grades

from the system, difficult as it may be.

As Coulombe puts it: “I think culturally there needs to be a shift from content-based

education, to skill based education. For me personally, it doesn't matter what you're learning.

What matters is how you learn it, and how you learn to learn. I wish we could abolish grades,

period.” (Coulombe)

Of all the changes that have warped the face of education, few are as blatant to see

nowadays as the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the pandemic, almost

93% of households with school-age kids experienced some form of remote education

(McElrath). In accordance to remote learning, new infrastructure was adopted into the current

education system, one of the most

notable new emergences being Zoom

education. Figure 2, to the left, details

what school was like for a substitute

teacher during the pandemic. The

only contact with students is through

a camera and a packed screen, with

Fig. 3 “Substitute teacher Lauryn Morley delivers a nobody else physically nearby. In
Zoom Class.” Olivier Douliery, NBC News, Nov 18, 2020.
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Douliery’s photo, Lauryn Morley sits alone at her desk with a laptop, a monitor, and notebook

as her only physical tools to teach with. With students learning from home, schools utilized a

variety of methods of remote education, and despite its accessibility, it has removed practically

the whole educational environment.

When asked what lasting impact remote learning has had on students, Coulombe

responded, “I think it’s hindered quality, but I think it's helped with accessibility. There [are],

you know, classes, like GE classes, that you just need to get done…and classes like that, I think a

digital model is sufficient. You don't necessarily need to have everybody in the classroom to do

anything.” Alongside the benefits of accessibility, however, comes the fallout after the return to

in-person learning, as he continued later about how “[returning from online learning] made a lot

of students not respond as positively to challenges.”

The COVID-19 pandemic, and specifically the online learning platform has impacted the

way students interacted with the materials at hand, with each other, and with the coursework

itself. Students are more likely to search up the answers to problems, are less vocal in the

classroom, and have met hardships with far less perseverance than before. With grading on the

other side, teachers are more pressured than ever to award better grades because of the pressure

on students to earn them. The past handful of decades have shown several changes in education,

and the next few are certain to as well.

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Works Cited

Cagle, Daryl. “Teachers Then and Now.” Cagle Cartoons, July 30, 2013,

https://www.cagle.com/daryl-cagle/2013/07/teachers-then-and-now, Accessed Feb 7,

2024.

Coulombe, Kevin. Interview. Conducted by Zachary Yockey, Jan 31, 2024.

Douliery, Oliver. “Lauryn Morley, a substitute teacher for the Washington Waldorf School in

Bethesda, Md., works from home in April in Arlington, Va.” NBC News, Nov 18, 2020,

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/covid-school-closings-raise-privacy-concerns-

students-teachers-ncna1247717, Accessed Feb 7, 2024.

Durm, Mark W. “An A is not an A is not an A: A History of Grading” The Educational Forum,

vol. 57, Spring 1993, https://classicalu.com/wp-content/uploads/Articles-on-History-of-

Grading.pdf, Accessed Feb 7, 2024

Healy, Christopher, and Stuart Rojstaczer. “Grading in American Colleges and Universities”

Teachers College Record, March 4, 2010, https://classicalu.com/wp-

content/uploads/Articles-on-History-of-Grading.pdf, Accessed Feb 7, 2024.

McElrath, Kevin. “Nearly 93% of Households With School-Age Children Report Some Form of

Distance Learning During COVID-19”, United States Census Bureau, Aug 26, 2020,

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/08/schooling-during-the-covid-19-

pandemic.html, Accessed Feb 7, 2024.

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“Percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in college, by level of institution and sex and

race/ethnicity of student: 1970-2022” Digest of Education Statistics, August 2023,

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_302.60.asp, Accessed Feb 7, 2024.

Schinske, Jeffrey, and Kimberly Tanner. “Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently)”

CBE-Life Sciences Education, 2014 Summer,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4041495/, Accessed Feb 7, 2024.

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Final Reflection

1.

My initial conception of this project was a bit off from what it was supposed to be. I

originally tried writing it like an informative essay, although that isn’t exactly how I currently

think of a profile essay. After the peer review, I realized how much others were putting first-

person elements into their essays, and how mine was sorely lacking in any pathos. Yes, a profile

provides information, but it does so in a way that is more like a person talking about the topic

instead of a textbook. In terms of the interview, I realized very soon after the interview started

that my questions were not as specific or developed as they should have been. Professor

Coulombe responded so thoroughly that he answered most of my questions before I had read

them, just as continuations of his other answers. As a result of that, I kind of had to work on my

feet and get as much relevant information as I could think of. My writing of the work shifted

dramatically away from the

2.

I was hoping that it would be a bit of an eye-opener for both professors and

students, as at least myself personally, I didn’t think about many of the topics I addressed

before writing the essay. Before writing the essay, personally, I didn’t think about many

of the topics I discussed, and it was kind of nice to know just how far the weight of a

grade has skyrocketed. That getting a 75% on a test would be passing with flying colors

in the past. I also hope that people start noticing that, grades are just little numbers and

letters that shouldn’t have as much impact as they do on students’ lives as they currently

do.
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3.

a)

1) The way that we were guided through narrowing down a feasible topic to

discuss helped to establish EO1 as it at least helped me understand which

ideas I had were practical for this genre of writing, and what content I

should include. I learned to dial back the raw data for this essay

(previously it had several more sources and much less discussion) and

ended up trying to give it a bit less formal style.

2) I think that more discussion about how the information is presented and

how it differs from an informational or analytical essay would be helpful. I

personally wrote it in a completely wrong style and had some difficulty

including the first-person elements fluidly.

b)

1) The brainstorming session/outlining day allowed me to kind of see how

the topics would lay on the page and let me box in which final topics I

wanted to include. Not all of them made it to the final draft, but it did help

me to select the sections of interest in the interview. Also, having the peer

review process earlier was very helpful in this regard as it let me see the

shortcomings in how I was presenting my information by seeing how they

moved from idea to idea. The section relating to grades was initially about

Yale’s old grade system, although after the peer review and editing

through the whole thing I realized that it wasn’t the best example, and
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after doing some more research, I came across the Harvard history which

remains in this version.

2) I think that it might be helpful to have a mid-way workshop regarding

topic transitions or chronology for those pursuing that route. I personally

would have found talking to some other people in class about how I was

navigating topics to be helpful. If anywhere, I think a small-group

discussion after the outlining task would have allowed me to catch some

of the flaws in my clarifications at first. (what I meant by “changes in

education”)

c)

1) I thoroughly had to research data about the origins of grades in the US,

and for my percentage data points, I had to navigate through a numerical

data table for me to find what I needed. The mandate of one external

source put the seed in my writing process that I needed to do research, and

research I did.

2) I think a short lecture (granted many students have had lectures of this sort

sometime in the past) about critical evaluation and ethical reporting would

be good, in order to fully achieve EO4. We did discuss how to properly

present a quote without altering its meaning, although I don’t recall us

doing much about critical evaluation.

d)

1) I do think that the peer review session kept me accountable for my

expression and my organization, as they were able to cleanly call out

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where I had failed to get my point across or failed to express the style of a

profile.

2) Most of the criteria for EO5 were dealt with in the process, but I do think

that for EO5 to be fully supported, some workshop or small-group-activity

about the cultural differences in communication would help finish it off.

(Maybe a shorter one-person peer review where they review while putting

themselves in the shoes of a specific possible audience, e.g. A professor,

non-college kid, someone who knows nothing about it, etc.)

4.

My strongest part in my opinion is the section comparing and contrasting modern grades

to current ones. I personally liked how wide of a divide I could paint between Harvard thinking a

70% was worthy of distinction, and students nowadays being scared over a 93%. I think that the

COVID section is my weakest section, as I placed more initial emphasis on the grades, and by

the time I reached the COVID section I was already at page five, although my image analysis

was about the substitute teacher, and so I felt like I had to work it in. If I could change anything,

I would either rewrite it so that I could focus entirely on the aspect of grades, or if more pages

were allowed, write a full B section pertaining to COVID.