Teachers grade the grading system

Most colleges evaluate how successful applicants were in high school based on their GPA and use the GPA system in their own curriculums as well. At Naperville North, many students see GPA as a final judgment on their intelligence and their work ethic. However, many teachers at NNHS recognize that students tend to focus too much on GPA.

NNHS Math Teacher Timothy Brown said he thinks the focus of students on GPA at our school is a result of the high achieving nature of the school.

“Focus on GPA is going to be inevitable for outstanding students to distinguish themselves from other outstanding students,” Brown said. “Thus, I do believe there is a large group of students who are more focused on the end grade than what the learning experience in and of itself can teach them.”

The grade point average at NNHS is based on a 4 point scale. Receiving an A in an unweighted class will yield a 4, while an A in a weighted class will yield a 5. Weighted B’s are essentially worth the same as unweighted A’s according to this scale. Teachers at NNHS have been acquainted with GPA for years. Despite their familiarity with it, many still wish the system was different.

NNHS senior Charlie Cheatham said he thinks that while the GPA system can quantify a student’s ability to work hard, a mere number cannot be indicative of intellect.

“The GPA System, in my opinion, measures how good of a student you are rather than raw intelligence,” Cheatham said.

Consequently, there may be a disconnect between student’s grades and what students are actually learning, according to NNHS Science Teacher Diane Sherry.

“I think that grades continue to be a disproportionate consideration for students,” Sherry said.

Sherry said she wishes her students could be more focused on gaining knowledge, but understands why her students tend to care more about grades.

“If I could start from scratch, I would like everybody who walked in my classroom to come there in order to acquire knowledge and have a passion for learning,” Sherry said. “I think that as long as GPA continues to be an important consideration for universities and for colleges, that’s probably not going to happen.”

Brian Nierman, NNHS Communication Arts teacher, shares similar views. He believes that in order to shift students away from the mindset of taking classes just to boost their GPA, the teaching system should be focused less on grades and points and more on transferrable skills.

“In my case, in English, these skills would be: reading, writing, speaking, evaluating text, analyzing texts, synthesizing texts and interpreting texts,” Nierman said. “These things that you learn in English will transfer to history, math, science, post-curricular education and beyond.”

The model that is often used to describe the balance between grades and learning is called the progress and attainment model. The attainment side of the model test stresses the importance of testing what students know and what they have memorized. In contrast, the progress side of the model stresses the importance of the growth of the students and their ability to practically use their newfound knowledge in order to determine how successfully they were taught. Nierman said he believes that focusing more on the progress side of the model would benefit the entire country’s education system.

“The business should be developing and fortifying these transferable skills,” Nierman said. “Attainment should be secondary to that.”

Even though some teachers agree that students should be more focused on the progress model, they also acknowledge that in certain regards, it is applicable to the current curriculum. Sherry expressed her doubts in the application of the progress model to the education system.

“Progress models work better when you have a measure of where everybody is starting but we don’t have good tools for that,” Sherry said. “I love that model, but I don’t think it’s practical.”

This contradiction may never go away. Since GPA is so entrenched, it has become the standard method for teachers to encourage student learning. So, even though there may be a desire among teachers to change the way the education system currently is, it would take a massive effort to push the system in another direction.