The Integrated University Information System (SIIU) publishes figures on student grades at the end of high school across Spain. From 2015 to 2023, the number of Catalan students completing high school with an excellent grade—an average of between 9 and 10—has increased by four points. Catalonia is one of the three regions that gives the least excellent grades to students., along with Navarre and the Balearic Islands. This data is part of a statistic that needs to be interpreted. Does this mean that in Catalonia, fewer excellent students are awarded compared to other regions because teachers are more demanding?
I'd like to put the issue of grades into context, moving from numbers to experience. First of all, grading is one thing, evaluating is another, and adequate training is another. Sometimes the numerical grade is high because the student has fully understood what the teacher is asking and has studied hard. Perhaps because the test was easy and fate was lenient. On the other hand, evaluation takes place during the educational process and doesn't necessarily have to be numerical. Finally, the desire to know and the intrinsic value of educational content for life cannot be reduced to a number, although the calculation is statistically very useful.
Grades shouldn't be arbitrary. However, there are teachers who give high marks and others who give low marks. That's why "evaluation rubrics" are designed, a way to make criteria visible and share them so everyone can understand them. Be that as it may, since teachers are different and are individuals, in practice no two excellent teachers are the same. Although statistics equate them, an excellent teacher from a bad teacher is not comparable to that of a good teacher (we can't get into the details of who is good and who isn't here).
In an original press article, Argentine writer César Aira explained Chilean painter Adolfo Couve's grading system. It consisted of asking the student: "Do you know?" If they answered yes, they passed. If they answered no, they had to repeat the year. This humorous anecdote actually points to a truth: what's at stake is the relationship with the knowledge being taught, how it impacts and permeates students (and teachers), and how it is incorporated into the future with others. Like a yes or a no.
Grades are a joke. A colleague told me that the "progressing adequately, needs to improve" generation has a genuine obsession (and sometimes a certain panic) with the final grade number. The parameter that separates 1 from 10 causes students to stake their image to an absolute degree, sometimes impossible to accept. Just as on social media, likes They give substance to their being, the person answering the phone asks you to complete the quality survey, and the judgment of grades mortifies young people. It's hard for them to understand that no one is perfect, to accept the risk that every loss entails, and the collateral gain that accompanies it.
