Are Grades Necessary for Learning?

    This is an interesting question. Are grades necessary for learning? Well, no not really. Students can learn in a variety of situations and sometimes will learn in spite of what is going on in the classroom. Grades may not always depict how much student learning is occurring, particularly in early grades.
    However, do you remember being a teenager? Usually a teenagers primary concerns aren't about how much they are learning or critically thinking in the classroom. They are worried about social issues and their relationships with friends and family. For most school is something they have to do or a step they must take to get to another goal. Grades are part of what helps motivate students to learn about a topic. They are completely necessary for getting students to crack open the text book begin researching a topic.
    I think about when I was in high school, there were a few subjects that I enjoyed learning about and I would have worked hard in those areas regardless of a grade. But if I wasn't required to pass other classes with a decent grade I would have done the least amount of work I could, just to get by. Maybe this makes me a bad student, but I know that this was the norm for students at my high school. Grades help to motivate students, they give them a goal or a purpose, and they are absolutely needed for teenagers.