Ungrading Part 1: The troubles with traditional grading

In Part One of Ungrading, Diana Varma RGD shares the problems with traditional grading structures.

Students of all ages and stages understand this familiar process: you submit an assignment into a (physical or digital) black hole of the grading drop box, where it resurfaces days or weeks later with some feedback and a numerical or letter grade that tells us what it's worth (and, too often inferred, our worth). 

As a student, I loved being graded. It was a source of pride, joy and validation. 

As a teacher, I’ve developed a healthy skepticism of traditional grading structures. This skepticism is a source of concern, curiosity and new ways of thinking. 

I’ve been experimenting with the concept of ‘ungrading’ in my design and communications courses since 2018, both in minor and major ways, with successes and failures along the way. Reexamining my preconceived notions of grading (which is a proportionally large part of being an educator in 2024!) has opened my eyes to grading’s role in the perpetuation of colonial structures, the massive variability in what a particular grade actually represents as well as how traditional grading structures may not be helping students to transition to life beyond the classroom. 

I’ve got 99 problems, and here are my top five.

Grades place emphasis on ‘playing the game of school’ (extrinsic motivation) instead of learning, synthesizing and applying knowledge (intrinsic motivation).

Some students genuinely want to learn the material, apply it to their daily lives beyond the classroom, make connections and grow as learners. Just as true is that many students believe that the primary purpose of school is to get A’s. I was there. I was that student. Place a competitive kid into an environment where they can hack, optimize and strategize their way to come out on top, with or without necessarily applying their learning along the way. Game on.

Grades are subjective, inconsistent and arbitrary.

Do your grading schemes include participation marks? Partial grades for process/scaffolding? An emphasis on rote learning and memorization? An emphasis on more complex application of concepts through problem-solving? Are all assessments tests? All projects? A couple of large assessments? Many small assessments? You get the idea. I’m all for autonomous classrooms and educators deciding the best way to evaluate their students. The result is often significant discrepancies in grading from one classroom to the next, but this isn’t the problem. The problem arises when we believe that all grades represent the same thing. Not all A’s are created equal. So why do we treat them as such when we see them on transcripts or other official documents? They are subjective, inconsistent and sometimes arbitrary. 

Grades can pit students against one another, perpetuating a competitive scarcity mentality (there can only be one number one) instead of building a culture of community abundance and growth (we can all be a little stronger, better and wiser than our past selves). 

The world needs less competitive scarcity. The world needs more community abundance. Educators are world-builders, and we can shape micro-worlds in our classrooms that can mimic a brighter future outside our classrooms. Traditional grading structures perpetuate the colonial idea that there can only be a few at the top who are graded higher than others, concentrating the power and success in a select group. But isn’t a big part of educational opportunities to learn to foster connections and community with others? We are stronger together — with unique skill sets, lenses and lived experiences — fostering the ability to create something more than any individual could on their own. Traditional grading structures don’t always align with the reality that we can all succeed in our own right.

Grades are a form of manipulation that force students to ‘win at all costs’ and lead to cheating, cutting corners and defeating the purpose of the learning. 

Academic misconduct in all forms (including passing someone else’s work off as one’s own, unethical uses of AI, the rise of contract cheating, etc.) runs rampant in school systems. The learning is in the doing, and when students believe that they must ‘win the game of school’ (see problem #1 above), some will do anything to get the grade. Layer complex factors like social and familial pressures to achieve certain grade levels and the problem is compounded. Author Brianna Wiest beautifully and aptly states: “One day, the mountain that is in front of you will be so far behind you, it will barely be visible in the distance. But the person you become in learning to get over it? That will stay with you forever – and that is the point of the mountain.”—and that is the point of education. 

Grades are one step further away from humanity in the classroom, distracting us from the most important work: understanding students, their goals and what they want from the experience together and connecting with them in the process. I see this as the most fundamental goal of educators, which is not an easy task, particularly with increased class sizes. Authentic connection is a lofty goal but also a core purpose of what it means to engage as an educator with a room full of students. Helping to establish value in an experience by understanding the students in the room allows us to create moments of meaningful resonance that they’ll take with them outside the classroom.

This list isn’t meant to vilify anyone using traditional grading structures (I still use them in a selection of the courses I teach, for a variety of reasons), but rather to call attention to the cracks showing in the foundation of traditional grading, and therefore in the institution itself. I hope that educators may be aware of these issues and remain curious about what’s possible within the control of their classrooms, considering repairs that make sense for their unique disciplines, courses and students. 

This article will be continued in ‘Ungrading Part 2: Shifting Paradigms’, where I share my experiences implementing ungrading, including specific successes and failures.