American Grading Issues, by Owen Welsh

As some of you may know, I haven't lived in America very long and I moved here from England, land of beans, politeness, and the Queen. I was a fool to believe that the transition between school systems would be smooth, and this led to a significant impact to my grades. Not to brag, but I'm pretty good at the whole school thing, usually I get pretty good grades and overall I'm not too bad, or so I thought. The shock set in about a week after school started and my grades started rolling in. Some classes were fine, you can't teach History more than one way, but apparently you can with Math.

I got points off my test for answering in decimal form, which is the standard in England, but here it is usually fraction form that's ideal. I object to this idea of having different methods being better than others, and I also object to losing points based on my preferences. Is school not supposed to accommodate me? But this is just a small complaint, I mean I could just switch to answering in fraction form, but it's more the fact that my teacher refused to believe that I'm used to answering in decimal.

The refusal to acknowledge that it was a cultural difference that led to me answering that way meant I lost points, but because I come from another English speaking country, people don't see it that way. For instance, if I came from Germany and I answered that way, there would be more accommodation based on the fact that the German school system is thought to be more different from the American one. However, the English school system is completely different. We don't have high school diplomas, we don't have finals, we have two sets of hugely important exams when you're 16 and 18 that determine your future career choices.

But Math isn't the only subject where the grading is harsher toward foreigners, even PE discriminates. I do not know how to play most American sports like basketball, or ultimate frisbee or whatever else the teacher decides to make us do. Because of this I can't properly participate in the sport due to my having just learned of its existence. I get a lower grade because I don't have prior knowledge for the class, a required class mind you.

I also take issue with the way the grades are weighted at this school particularly. It should not be 60/30/10. If I have to put in a few hours work on a piece of homework I want it to count for more than 10% of my grade. Yet, at the same time, if a teacher decided that a 5 minute quiz that consists of 10 questions is a summative, and I get an 80, this should not be as heavily weighted as a 2 period test. This is why I prefer the way my English class grades, because many of the summative and formative assignments can be completed in school or at home, which allows me to make a positive impact on my grades both inside and outside the learning environment.

Overall there is a lot of work to be done in school systems to help accommodate foreign students, a simple first step is understanding that there isn't anything wrong with the child having been taught a different method to the way you teach.