“The deleterious effect of gradings and its offspring”
It's that time again when we get busy calculating grades to determine the winners and the losers. I realize few if any teachers think of it that way but to many, that's how it comes across. You can argue that it's simply a celebration of hard work and excellence. Maybe. Maybe not.
It's been over a year since one of my students wrote a very heartfelt post about his younger brother. The aftermath of this post was quite powerful and led to a big change. Read the comments, a few of which aren't very nice to get the full picture. Kyle handled himself with integrity. I continue to point to this post as a great example of the power and potential of blogging. 
But the whole grading and honour roll thing continues to be problem-some, at least for me.
All my kids have been on the honour roll. For them the grades were motivating and to be honest, they didn't really work all that hard. Sure they studied and put in the effort but I know many students who worked much harder with poorer results. School came pretty easy for them. In the end, the real winners were the ones that learned how to learn, the ones that found a passion, worked hard because they