In Failing our Future: How Grades Harm Students and What We Can Do About It, Joshua Eyler examines how traditional grading undermines the learning experience for students. He argues that grades distract students from authentic learning because they are extrinsic motivators and shift students’ focus to rewards rather than fostering intellectual curiosity and discovery.
Eyler demonstrates that our obsession with grades enhances academic stress, causes anxiety, and contributes to the current mental health crisis among students. He suggests that grades reinforce competition and inequities. They also benefit students with more resources and support while disadvantaging those who face systemic barriers to learning.
In Failing our Future, Eyler advocates for significant reforms to grading, emphasizing portfolio-based grading, which prioritizes student growth and allows for a more holistic assessment of learning. Writing for the journal Active Learning in Higher Education, researchers Kelsey Chamberlin, Maï Yasué, and Chant a Chiang agree that students who “used narrative evaluations experienced higher intrinsic and autonomous motivation than students who received multi-interval grades.” Eyler believes that these alternative methods of assessing learning can reduce stress and create an environment in which students engage more deeply with course material.
The most convincing aspect of Failing Our Future is Eyler’s extensive use of quantitative and qualitative research to paint a picture of the harm caused by an overemphasis on grades. He points to the rise in mental health issues among students, including depression and suicide ideation. Major research studies confirm Eyler’s ideas. For instance, based on interviews and survey data, Chamberlin and colleages found that “Grades did not enhance academic motivation. Instead, grades enhanced anxiety and avoidance of challenging courses.”
Eyler’s arguments are in congruence with experts across teaching, psychology, and educational policy who believe that an emphasis on holistic development and critical thinking, creativity, understanding, and collaboration will serve students better overall. For those hesitant to de-emphasize grades, he shared that “Grades have never been objective measures of learning or achievements. They are, at most, a reflection of students’ progress on the individual goals set by one instructor for a particular course; they’re not a universal declaration of knowledge gained in a specific field.
After reading Failing Our Future, I was pushed to think about the ways we should best balance academic standars with student well-being, and how we can create learning environments that prioritize growth, creativity, and equity rather than merely grades?