View
64
Download
0
Category
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
Why are children graded in primary school? This reasonable representation of achievement, a utility of marked development and reflection of knowldge is clear, but its stain on children is morally illigitimate. Should grades and test results be utilised outside of school? Why are they used to determine the opportunities of children before they have reaching the age of reason? 400-500 words
Citation preview
What Justice Requires when Grading and
Testing
‘Should test scores and grades be used outside of school?’
Brian Valenzuela Sotomayor
2011
Within a meritocratic society it is very agreeable that “man develops little by little
through his own efforts” (Kant, 1960), after all academic performance is based on the
judgement of a student‟s ability in producing work that satisfies a particular
expectation of a test. Within this process teachers approve or disapprove the
attempts of students who aim to achieve the required standards required for
educational attainment, those fortunate phew who receive an accumulation of
approval are rewarded with credentials that open up a world of opportunities in
employment or in further education. Those who accumulate disapproval miss out on
such opportunities. With future opportunity and disadvantage at stake, there is a
huge responsibility amongst teachers and external verifiers when grading and testing
children, a responsibility that coincides with the immorality of creating social injustice.
According to Curren (2007) teachers have a “constitutive‟ responsibility towards their
“students state of intellectual virtue” (ibid, p7), or you could say intellectual worth;
where each student should be finding within themselves the purpose and worth of
intellect in their lives.
By combining the prior meritocratic example with the teacher‟s constitutive
responsibility of a student‟s intellectual virtue, can it be justifiable that children should
suffer as a result of bad grades and experience fewer opportunities than others?
According to Curren Adults, teachers and institutions have a constitutive
responsibility of formulating academic and moral standards that are largely out of a
child‟s control (ibid, p7). So, if children are in fact subordinated by the educator‟s
duty of intellectual stimulation, why are children‟s opportunities in life being
determined by a child‟s intellectual ignorance? Curren identifies this paradox where
children are being made to learn with “an unnecessary burden” because
accumulated grades are in fact “morally illegitimate” (ibid, p28). Furthermore if
indeed a teacher is responsible for the intellectual and moral virtue of children,
teachers should also take various factors in to account when grading students, such
as the possible advantages and disadvantages caused by a child‟s “constitutive
luck‟.
Constitutive luck is believed to be an affect that has impeded the moral and
intellectual virtue of a child, formed outside of a child‟s control; such as problems at
home, interpersonal problems at school or the effects of malnutrition and health care.
So if a child‟s intellectual and moral virtue has been at the mercy of “constitutive
luck‟ why are the lives of children being determined by grades that bear the
“constitutive responsibility‟ of teachers, parents and institutions; who are all
responsible for flourishing the intellectual worth and values of children?
Curren (2007) believes “children should not be held accountable for their choices
until the constitutive responsibility of teachers, parents and institutions has been
borne” (ibid, p18). It seems as if the „immaturity‟ of children‟s choices and academic
performance are being allowed to form a child‟s lifetime credentials that will provide a
particular access to employment and educational opportunities.
We must ask ourselves whether this promotes a sense of social justice and
whether children should be solely held accountable for their academic performance
at school. After exploring the constitutive responsibility of teachers, parents and
institutions, as well as the possible impacts of constitutive luck; it appears that
grades and test scores being used outside school could arguably be viewed as not
only unfair by socially unjust to children, therefore possibly morally illegitimate. For
example, according to Curren (2007) “Fair equality of opportunity is said to require
not merely that public offices and social positions be open (to all, in accordance with
talent) in the formal sense, but that all should have a fair chance to attain them” ( ibid,
pp9-10).
This meritocratic evaluation seems to described the pillars of a liberal and
democratic society in which man‟s effort and reward must be fair, this aligns with a
Kantian ideology that “man develops little by little through his own efforts”, but
according to Rawls “those who have the same level of „natural‟ talent and ability and
the same willingness to use these gifts should have the same prospects of success
regardless of their social class origin, the class into which they are born and develop
until the age of reason” (Curren pg.: 10). What is striking about Rawls reference to
the age of reason is that according to Curren (2007) before a child has reached the
age of reason a child will have already have been “unnecessarily burdened‟ with
“illegitimate credentials‟ as a result of a Russian roulette experience with
“constitutive luck‟ or the mere absence of “constitutive responsibility‟ from their
teachers, parents and educational institutions.
It is clear in my mind that with clarity Curren and John Rawls have demonstrated that
justice requires that grades „should not‟ be accumulated until a child has reached the
age of reason and only after constitutive responsibility has been provided in
abundance; only then should a child‟s tests scores be used outside of school and
determine their position with a meritocratic society.
Bibliography
Curren, R. (2007). „Academic Standards and Constitutive Luck‟, in Maureen Eckert
and Robert Talisse (eds.), A Teacher‟s Life: Essays for Steven M. Cahn. Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books, pp.13-29
Curren, R. (2007). „Coercion and the Ethics of Grading and Testing‟, in Philosophy of
Education: An Anthology: Oxford: Blackwell. pp 465-476.
Kant, I. (1960). Education, United States of America: Michigan Press. pp 2-3
Recommended