Members of older generations seem to derive inordinate pleasure from criticizing the moral character of millennials . Among these variously amusing and offensive assaults against my generation is a complaint against grading in schools. The most common variation of this grievance is as follows: in the old days, grading was hard, most people got bad grades, and students understood the hard realities of the real world; today everyone gets an A and none of us deal with adversity.
This image of college (and high school) as a place of intellectual laxness, absent rigor and struggle simply does not comport with reality. After all, an extraordinary portion of my fellow students are extraordinarily stressed. But the crux of grade inflation complaints remains true: grades are much higher now than they have been before. The truth is that grade inflation is bad for students – but not for the reason you would think. Grade inflation is bad not because it causes laxness, but excessive rigor.
Imagine a classroom where all expect to do well, where an A is average, an A- is a failure and a B a calamity to terrifying to contemplate. This caricature of educational expectations all too closely fits many high schools and colleges. The problem breeds is not one of excessive self esteem but of neurosis. Students are more than smart enough to appreciate relative performance; to understand that getting an A is meaningless if every other student does too. Instead, students feel a constant, obsessive need to do well, to stand out, and achieve truly perfect scores, never missing a grade, never missing a point.
This need to avoid even a single error, a slight misstep, is profoundly stressful, and deeply un-productive. I have seen it myself. Every test, every assignment has a downside, but there is rarely an upside. When the expectation of so many students is an A, there is nowhere to go but down.
If the average grade really was a C, or lower, then there would be a chance for a positive outcome on tests, more students would have the opportunity to feel truly happy rather than merely relieved. All grades, all scores derive their value from performance relative to other students. Grade inflation may well have been intended to inflate students' self-esteem, but its real effect has been far more pernicious.
An effort to boost self-esteem and reduce stress has likely contributed, in some small but significant way, to the epidemic of mental illness that plagues higher education - The bizarre truth is that college would be so much easier to stand if we all got D’s.
