Ignorance is bliss. If you don’t know your grades, you can’t stress about them. That is why Oakton students should not have the kind of 24-hour SIS availability they currently have. Several reasons that lead to this conclusion. Everyone gets grades back when an assignment is returned and teachers are put under pressure to rush grading to get grades in as early as possible. Previous generations did well in school without this ability, proving it’s not necessary.
Everybody knows their grades when they get an assignment returned and can retake it if they would like to increase their grade. This was what elementary school was like and nobody seemed to complain about it. SIS can also create misconceptions about what the grade is. Many times, SIS will display a nice-looking grade before it closes for the quarter, and then your report card will display a not-so-nice grade.
Having on-demand access to your grades also puts stress on teachers who are behind on grading to catch up so students’ SIS grades are a more accurate reflection of their current grades. Teachers get pressured by students to grade assignments so students can see what they got on them. “If we didn’t [have access to SIS] it would be better because then they would have to return our [paper] tests to us” – Patrick Breslin (12).
Parents did not have access to their grades and still turned out fine. The traditional way of seeing grades only when report cards are available worked for generations. High Schoolers are also at too young of an age to have the self-control to not “SIS stalk.” SIS stalking is checking SIS multiple times per day, waiting for a teacher to put in a grade they are anxious about. Some students think it’s better to know than to remain in the dark “It’s scary if you don’t know your grade” – Daniel Wang (12).
There are some benefits to having 24-hour SIS availability, like having access to grades before they are final and being able to catch teacher mistakes. However, I believe it does more harm than good when it comes to students’ mental health and teacher pressure to input grades quickly.
