### Why grades, and meritocratic schemes in general, should be reconsidered See also: [[Penitence]], [[Punishment]], [[Standardization]]. (Bias out of the way: I fucking hate grading. I love being exposed to new things, such as ideas, essays, artworks and other expressions from people who are defined as “students” in my contexts.) 1) Grades have a terrible “performance” history (see e.g., the history of “anthropometrics” as aligned with the efficiency demands of the military-industrial complex, or Malabou on intelligence measuring (2021), or see how the “[father of the SATs](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/three.html” was a huge proponent of eugenics) ” was an enthusiastic eugenicist). Are we also doing _medicals_ on students, and measuring IQ? What’s the fundamental difference between these kinds of measurements, and performance grades? Sure: students want to know “where they are at,”[^1] but in my experience: generous, empathetic, qualitative feedback is much better guidance than a point on a scale. 2) Grading schemes pretend students exist under equal conditions, which they do not. No matter how much we try to achieve this in the classroom (and rightly so), it is not possible. Students come from different backgrounds, psycho/physiological set-ups, etc. All students should be listened to, and their conditions acknowledged. Feedback that fits the student is better than fitting any and all students to a trivial standard. 3) Grades are often seen as a quality mark, and this distracts from the actual feedback given. If an A is given alongside some feedback, the feedback is likely to be ignored or interpreted positively, even if it contains very relevant points of improvement. Vice versa is true as well: if an F is given, the F will distract from whatever (if any) encouragement comes with the qualitative feedback, because the mark itself is insufficient. 4) The grading system answers to something that does not reflect the constructive structures of sociality, labor and general living conditions in the “real” world. Never again will a student encounter a similar condition, unless they enter the worst of possible worlds: the military, the police, etc. The often rhetorically-posed questions along the lines of “what should we otherwise do?” are abandonist and highly conformist. Why should we stick to _anything_ we know from the horrifically problematic previous centuries’ approaches to what it means to be human? In light of the points above, the following questions could also be posed: why should we continue to perpetuate a system which 1) has a terrible history, 2) is not a reflection of student conditions, 3) + 4) doesn’t provably work? But what are some “alternatives,” for those who demand them? The answer is: first of all, before anything, all education should be public, all people should be(come) students—we already are as soon as we are born into any social group—and all people who need special help for learning from others, should receive it. That means that we avoid the idea of “reforming” those who have complex histories (and thus encounter learning problems), and _help them_ instead. Learning conditions should be a matter of collective reflexivity, whenever learning conditions appear. Bodies of knowledge should be continually requestioned. This doesn’t mean that we will stop teaching Newtonian physics, but that Newtonian physics will be actively examined and updated, and taught alongside its history and transformations: why else would it be interesting to learn it? This means that _tests_ should continue to exist, but they should test the teachers, the whole class and the institution. What tests should do is examine how much students are actually receiving as knowledge from the teacher(s): no grades, but an assessment of where everyone stands, how they feel, what they desire. Let’s imagine a boring, standard multiple choice test: if everyone fails to answer one particular question, this says more about the complexity of the question, and the amount of actual “understanding” around it, rather than anything about the capacity of the students. This type of testing should be examined collectively: the students, the teacher(s), etc., including as many people involved in the learning conditions as possible. Are all of these processes longer, more complex, demanding more time and attention than is currently available? Yes, and following in line with proposals that aim to slow down the rapidly derailing systems of the 20th century, this is simply one more. Slow down, pay attention. Do so together. [^1]: In my experience so far, students, and people in general, know “where they are at” by conversing/contrasting with those around them. This is how interests are discovered, how collaborations emerge, how things are built. It’s not about standardizing or consensus but about permanent re-evaluation and metastable, mutual recognition.