My topic explores the idea that grades can be used as operants in the conditioning of high schoolers in China. According to the introductory reading, “In learning based on behaviourist principles, appropriate stimuli produce learning responses. These should be followed up with positive reinforcement in the form of rewards (‘correct’, ‘A+’, ‘well done’) or negative reinforcement in the form of punishments (‘error’, ‘F’, ‘bad girl’). Education is conceived as a process of behaviour modification” (Kalantzis and Cope 2008, Chp. 6, p. 6).

My notion is that grades cannot help students learn unless there is standardization across the curriculum. Ultimately, grades can be dangerous when the context of culture and organization isn’t deeply considered. Here is an article that illustrates the pre-emminence of grades in the Chinese system: 

Chinese Grades and Stress

http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001671/student-rankings-are-making-parents-and-kids-more-miserable

I have recently come face-to-face with this thinking in a way that has scarred me – and I’m not exaggerating. I recently taught at a highly competitive program in China where grades – not learning – were the most important element of the program. The problem was that not all teachers gave the same grades based on work. So, for example, what one teacher considered an A, another considered a B. Without standardization of grading across all subjects, the problem arose that students were traumatized by a B grade. Indeed, many in my Introduction to Economics course thought of a B as complete failure, to the degree that many began having nervous breakdowns and were placed on a suicide watch list, which I learned later. I quickly modified the grading and bumped everything up, but still it wasn’t enough. B-plus grades were also considered bad, as was anything less than an A, especially by students who had, at the age of 14, decided that there were going to become Economists and that I was standing in the way of their dream.

In other words, teaching was put on hold and grading according to a student's mental state became the order of the day. Below is a video I've used for both Update 1 and 2 -- but it illustrates the typical day for a well-heeled Chinese student in an affluent program. Of particular interest is the shot of students doing exercises in the yard. They are lined up each morning based in the academic rank, the ones with the best grades serving as leaders. So each morning they are reminded of where they stand in the academic pecking order: 

I can go on and on about this situation, but I’ll leave the reader with a thought: at a parent/teacher conference, I was pulled aside by a parent who asked why her daughter had gotten an A. I told her that she was a great student, that’s why. Her point, however, was that another girl in the same class had gotten an A-plus – and so she was concerned that her daughter was dim witted. I was shocked – and have yet to recover from the place.

Source:

Kalantzis, Mary and Bill Cope (2008) New Learning: Elements of a Science of Education Cambridge University Press (2nd edition, 2012).