Grading systems in middle school should be abolished.

My opponent begins by saying that kids in middle school are more focused on getting good grades than actually learning. Her reasoning is that with grades, kids will do exactly what is required to get good grades, and there is no incentive for doing extra. I would like to point out that with or without the presence of a grade, whether or not students do extra will not change. A motivated student will want to learn more regardless of whether or not they will receive a grade for it. A non-motivated student will not want to learn more, even without a grading system. In addition, without a grading system, a non-motivated student may not even see the need to do what is required, as there is no directly correlation between how they perform on any given assignment and their grade. There is no easy way to measure learning. Grades offer students a simple way of looking at how much they understand of what is being taught. Students focus on grades, and the grades are used as a factor to help the student learn, not as a way to distract them from learning. Moving on to my opponent's second contention, she states that grades cause bad self-esteem. She gives an example of a student who gets an F, which causes them stress. I would like to look at the long term effects of this example. The student who failed an assignment would be stressed at first, yes, but the grade is an easy way for them to know that they do not understand what is being taught. They can then go to a teacher or parent for help, and better understand what is being taught. In the long term, the grading system helps the student learn to do better and helps them deal with stress. My opponent's third contention is that kids need specialized feedback and teachers should give a written evaluation, which gives students a more specific evaluation of what they need to improve on. However, I see no reason not to implement specialized feedback, written evaluations, or even parent-teacher conferencing in addition to the current grading system model. It is not necessary to get rid of grades altogether in order to give students specialized feedback. Just because students need specialized feedback does not mean that we should have to replace the grading system with written evaluations. Teachers can give specific evaluations and grades at the same time, and there is no reason to have to choose one or the other. I would now like to defend my own case. In response to my first contention, my opponent states that standardized ways of communicating how much a student knows is not as necessary in middle school as later on, and that middle school should be a time for focusing on students' strengths and weaknesses. Once again, she brings up the idea of the written evaluation, which I say can be used in addition to the grading system, instead of replacing it. She mentions that the grading system is not as necessary for middle schoolers as it is for when they are older. However, I would like to point out that the purpose of "middle" school is to be the transition period between elementary and high school, and adjusting to the high school grading system is an important part of middle school. Yes, students need to focus on strengths and weaknesses, but having a standardized way of communicating how much a student knows is just as important in middle school as it is in high school. My opponent stated that it is the idea of feedback that motivates students, and not the grades themselves. She says that written evaluations are more inspiring. My opponent, once again, is under the belief that if teachers were to use written evaluations, which some of them do in certain circumstances, we would have to eliminate grades and abolish the grading system in order to use them. This is flawed logic. Teachers are fully capable of giving written evaluations for certain assignments if they feel it necessary, but there is no reason for teachers to only give a written evaluation without a grade attached to it. Giving written evaluations does not mean that the grading system should be abolished. Next, my opponent states that grades are not the best form of feedback, and that a written evaluation accomplishes the "exact same thing" as a grade, in a more inspiring way. Written evaluations and grades do not accomplish the exact same thing. Written evaluations give students constructive criticism on what needs to be improved, and acknowledgement for what they did well. Grades, on the other hand, provide students with a direct way of comparing their grades with where a student wants to be, and how much more a student needs to accomplish in order to get there. A teacher can easily tell the class "The class average for this assignment was a B+", and students are then able to check their assignment to see whether or not they are working up to the standards expected by the teacher. That cannot be accomplished with written evaluations, and therefore, grades are just as important, if not more important. Finally, in response to my fourth contention, my opponent states that a teacher can guide their instructional planning by seeing in depth what students are and aren't understanding by looking over their actual work. With hundreds of students, it can often be difficult for teachers to determine how many people are actually understanding what is being taught. With a grading system in place, teachers would better be able to see exactly what students understand, don't understand, how much they know, and how their progress has changed over a period of time. And for these reasons, the grading system should not be abolished.