Midterm Grades: Are They Enough?
By HENRY WISE ‘27
When thinking about the topic of midterm grades, one thing comes to mind for everyone: What am I going to get?
Is this element of mystery truly necessary? Why shouldn’t students know how they are doing in a class at all times? In classes like English and history, for most of the year students have no idea where they stand in the class. For example, last term, I didn’t know whether I was going to get an A in English, or a B-. This is why students should be told their current grades in the class.
To begin, we must address the concept of midterm grades. At their core, midterm grades are meant to act as a marker for students to track their progress halfway through the term. Their main purpose is for you to see your grades, and to possibly motivate you to work harder. Now, if a student really wants to improve, shouldn’t they always know where they stand? Of course, midterm grades are very important, but why not go further? Why don’t teachers tell you what grade you have every week?
If students are given their grades at the end of each week, they will have ten chances to improve their grades, instead of just hoping for the best every time they submit an essay or take a test. This increased communication would apply especially to Harkness-based classes such as religion, history, or English. Since many of these classes focus on Harkness, it is vital that students be informed of their grades each week. This way, they know what they need to be improving on, and the scale at which they need to do so. Thus, if grades were administered to students on a weekly basis in each class, it would benefit students by giving them additional opportunities to improve their academic performance.
This new practice would also motivate students to work harder. In some classes, students have virtually no idea what their grade is at any given moment because of factors like Harkness, which is often graded and changes daily. If students could constantly monitor their grades at the end of each week, they would be motivated to work harder, and if they were able to see their teachers’ feedback on what they are doing well in classes, they would know what to replicate in classes in the future to get good grades.
Another reason students should have access to their grades each week is because of transparency. A student might think they are doing great in a class, but when they receive midterm grades they might be taken aback by the drastic difference between their expectations and the reality. Providing grades each week would help students realize that they might be doing worse or better in a class than they thought, and cause them to change or keep their habits and skills in that class that they otherwise could have done very differently.
In conclusion, midterm grades are a very important part of every student’s term. They help students to become aware of how they are performing in a class, and push them to work harder in pursuit of improving that performance. However, if they are so important, why not just share grades every week to ensure transparency between students and teachers and to help students be more aware of what they are doing wrong or right in each class to further their academic abilities in each class?
