Thanks for bringing up this topic. I am happy that our university provides free writing services for all the students, faculty, and staff, at all levels through The Virginia Tech Writing Center. I hope students like Ana seek to find trustworthy people/institutes to help them out with the language.

Let me start off by saying that i do agree the grading does have an ugly face. However, I think changing the grading system needs a good reliable and sustainable alternative. By that i mean a system that is fair to everyone, cannot be easily manipulated and can objectively characterize the understanding and learning of students. As to what that alternative might be, that is a question beyond me. However, i like the idea of getting tenure then experimenting, after all tenure was put in place for situations like this.

On a different note, are you familiar with the Happening movement that, er, *happened* from the 50’s to the 70’s? We’re discussing it in my Art History course and the faculty at Black Mountain College, John Cage in particular, were pretty integral to its teachings. It’s pretty wild stuff.

You raise a point I haven’t seen very often: that someone can be both mindless and motivated. What do you think that would look like? Can you think about ways in which students can be mindless but motivated at the same time, because motivating students is exactly what we want to do, but if they’re not also mindful, then we still haven’t fully done our jobs, have we? Or perhaps it’s their responsibility. Either way, as instructors, how do you think we can achieve both mindfulness and motivation in our students?

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Having been a TA and collaborated with faculty on the grading of students, I have seen what a democratic approach to grading *could* look like. It’s definitely something worth trying, primarily because it allows students the change to defend their work and clear up any misunderstandings or idiosyncrasies that may have been lost in translation. Without that extra voice in the room, a lot of things can go unsaid between student and teacher and it’s a missed opportunity for growth on both sides. Granted, I’m in Visual Arts, so the opportunities for interpretation of student work present themselves much more often than in , say, Engineering or Chemistry. I’d be happy to hear the opinions of someone in a STEM field regarding this subject! What are the differences? Do you think that something like what I described is possible? If not, why?

I’m coming from the other side on this one. When I read “The Case Against Grading”, I was fully prepared to bash grading right along with him. I do believe that in elementary, middle, and maybe even high school, grading doesn’t do much. However, your point that “passion does not translate into competence” is also valid: there’s a huge difference between someone who’s passionate about kidneys and someone with an M.D., a board certification, and the hospital experience to take mine out should something go wrong. If I had to get my kidney removed, I’d definitely prefer the latter.

Your blog asks some important questions. The main reason I could think of researchers engaging in misconduct and falsifying data is to speed up the process of their promotions and possibly get ahead in the race. What they don’t realize is that this is a misuse of the resources and is hampering the reputation of the institution and the industry and a lot is at stake.