Dear teachers,

You all are underpaid, overwhelmed and under appreciated. You have to deal with all sorts of students, from cheaters to liars to students who just refuse to try. We know you deal with a ton of stress and you don't make enough for what you do for the youth. We really do appreciate you. I just have one request: Stop making your students do your grading for you.

I get so anxious when I hear the teacher tell me to trade papers with another student. I'm not completely against grading another student's paper. For example, if the assignment is very simple or not worth many points, I can see why it would just be easier to grade it in class. If the assignment was multiple choice, true or false or a math assignment with one correct answer, I would not mind grading a peer's paper. However, there are two instances in which teachers should not ask students to trade papers: tests and assignments with subjective or ambiguous answers.

A student should not be expected to grade a classmate's test. A student should not be expected to be OK with another student grading his or her test. My grade is solely my business and the only person I want to share my business with is you, the teacher. Whether I didn't study or just didn't understand the concept, I don't want my classmate to know how bad of a grade I got. Not to mention, a test grade is worth a whole lot more than a homework assignment. I would feel much more comfortable knowing that you, my teacher, gave me the grade I deserved rather than another student giving me the grade he or she thought I deserved. Honestly, I don't even feel comfortable knowing that a teacher's assistant graded my test.

A student also shouldn't be expected to grade an assignment with subjective or ambiguous answers. Teachers, do you understand how hard that is for us? Unless you have an answer key with exact word for word answers on it, grade it yourself. I'm tired of having to raise my hand for every question because I don't want to count someone wrong when the answer was actually correct. But I also don't want to mark it as correct when it actually wasn't, especially when I find out my grader marked my answer as incorrect. I try to make it fair. An incorrect answer for an incorrect answer. But that's not the way grading is supposed to work, so teachers, stop this from happening by just grading it yourself.

The worst part about asking students to grade each other's papers is that it causes strife between students. Why would you want to cause issues between your students? Some students are honest and will mark the tests correctly, but others will purposely mark certain answers as correct when they were actually wrong. Some dishonest students will peer pressure the honest students into marking wrong answers as correct. Sure, you could tell the students to write the grader's name on the paper and tell the students that you will be checking to make sure it was graded properly. You can threaten the grader that he or she will get in trouble if the grade is not correct, but that does not stop the dishonest student from pressuring the grader to mark an incorrect answer as correct. It just puts more pressure on the honest grader because now the grader will either be in trouble with the student or the teacher. The honest grader loses in both situations. The only one who isn't being held accountable is the bully pressuring the grader into giving him or her a good grade. Besides, if you are going to check that the assignment was graded properly anyway, why not just grade it yourself?

So teachers, please listen to our plea. Stop causing strife between students and stop adding to the amount of peer pressure we already face. Stop making us feel uncomfortable by forcing us to allow our fellow students to have access to our grades. Stop making us guess what you would consider the right answer to be when the questions are so ambiguous. You are a teacher and one of the job descriptions for that occupation is grading tests and assignments. So do it, or don't assign the assignment.

Sincerely,

Students who are tired of doing your job.