The work of teaching shouldn’t be reduced to the mechanical act of grading or marking. Our talk of grading shouldn’t be reduced to our complaining about the continuing necessity of it.

If you’re a teacher and you hate grading, stop doing it.

Across education, we’ve normalized absurd levels of grading, test-taking, and standardized assessment. And yet letter grades are a relatively recent phenomenon. They weren’t widely used until the 1940s.

Without much critical examination, teachers accept they have to grade, students accept they have to be graded, students are made to feel like they should care a great deal about grades, and teachers are told they shouldn’t spend much time thinking about the why, when, and whether of grades. Obedience to a system of crude ranking is crafted to feel altruistic, because it’s supposedly fair, saves time, and helps prepare students for the horrors of the “real world.” Conscientious objection is made to seem impossible.

I would argue teachers grade in many more situations than grading is useful and/or actually required by institutions.

 We don’t prepare students for a world of potential oppression by oppressing them.

Source: How to Ungrade | Jesse Stommel