Grade (education) - History of Grading

History of Grading

Keith Hoskin argues that the concept of grading students' work quantitatively was developed by a tutor named William Farish and first implemented by the University of Cambridge in 1792. Hoskin's assertion has been questioned by Christopher Stray, who finds the evidence for Farish as the inventor of the numerical mark to be unpersuasive. Stray's article elucidates the complex relationship between the mode of examination (testing), in this case oral or written, and the varying philosophies of education these modes imply, both to teacher and student. As a technology, grading both shapes and reflects many fundamental areas of educational theory and practice.

Read more about this topic:  Grade (education)

Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or grading:

    “I am not a literary man.... I am a man of science, and I am interested in that branch of Anthropology which deals with the history of human speech.”
    —J.A.H. (James Augustus Henry)

    “Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
    —Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)

    “The only phenomenon with which writing has always been concomitant is the creation of cities and empires, that is the integration of large numbers of individuals into a political system, and their grading into castes or classes.... It seems to have favored the exploitation of human beings rather than their enlightenment.”
    —Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908)