Grading by organization vs. grading by learning

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Since I moved, I've noticed that at my new school I'm graded mostly by how well I can organize my notebooks/binders instead of how much and how well I learn.
So I have a question for you: do you think that schools should grade a student based mostly on their learning or mostly on their organizational skills?
I personally think grading by learning is more helpful and effective.

I thought the purpose of grading was based on what you learned, not how you learn it. I guess I was mistaken.

Granted, part of my social studies grade was based on how tell I wrote down the notes that the teacher put on the chalk board (3 walls had chalk boards). The teacher was primarily an english teacher so he graded based on penmenship. The problem was that I would write down the notes, never look at the notebook until I had to write down more notes, and still scored no less than an 88 on his tests.

I think grading on organization proves nothing other than that even the teacher could not find enough busy work to grade the student on.

I have a question for you: What grade are you in? I experienced the same thing when I was in middle school and early high school. When I was in 6th grade they even graded us on whether or not we wrote in our planners.

The teachers are trying to teach you organisation. Organisation is usually a learned skill. It is important to be organised when you reach higher education, get a job, start paying bills, etc. If teachers can instill these skills while students are young, it will be more likely to become a habit.

Organisation takes time and effort, though. How do teachers get students to put in some extra effort? They get the students an insentive. What is that insentive? Grades.

In my opinion, this is not entirely a bad way to go about doing things. I think it's a good idea for kids in middle school, and possibly 9th or 10th graders. Once a student is in their last couple years of high school, I don't think it's a good idea. The students are old enough to decide how they want to organise themselves, and they shouldn't need constant monitoring.

No matter what age, I don't think grades for learning and grades for organisation should be distributed evenly. Learning and understanding the material is more important than making sure students' notebooks are in order, and that should be reflected in how a teacher grades.

I'm a sophomore in high school. And I liked my old school way better than the one I just moved to.
Anyhow, school in my opinion should be more about what you learn than how well you can manage your binder. And I hate how the main focus in my core classes is always on organization rather than learning.

I don't know how many problems I've had with organization. Many of my teachers (even this year and I'm a senior in high school) check how we organize our binders and use this for a grade, sometimes a large portion of the grade in that specific class. I failed one class in ninth grade because of this and it caused major grief, and have improved slightly, though I still can hardly ever find assignments for some of my classes when I need them.

For notetaking, my notes are extremely messy, mostly due to my handwriting, which is a near disaster. I'm also left-handed and not a very fast writer and up through part of chemistry (tenth grade), I would write all of my notes in mirror image script, kind of like da Vinci did in his notebooks. I originally started doing this so people would quit looking over my shoulder when I was writing, but I started taking notes this way and I got very efficient at it. Teachers didn't like this at all, so they forced me to stop.

I can see where organization comes in handy, but I think some teachers make too much of a big deal about it. I had one teacher who was extremely organized and methodical in his teaching style (very predictable- most likely an ISTJ on the MBTI test) and he would insist that our notebooks were organized to his standards. It worked out fine for his class. (This was my tenth grade history teacher, by the way.) One of my other teachers made us take notes and all of that stuff, but his policy was that you'd better learn the material. He really didn't care if we were organized or not as long as we turned in our homework and our other assignments on time and properly. Most teachers, however, fall somewhere between these two extremes.

I think that organization should be taught in a classroom setting by teachers. Some teachers have counted binder checks (organization) as class participation or a simple quiz or homework grade, as well as giving other regular homework, quizzes and tests in that class. I think this is the best way to teach organization to the average middle school or early high school student. If someone needs more help than this, I would ask a teacher personally for help outside of the classroom.

At the school I go to, there is a special program for kids who have behavioural problems which can be slightly modified to work with students who need extra help with organization. Basically, each student has a special notebook with a page to fill out their homework and the teacher for each class signs it, as well as initials off that the student had decent behaviour during class that day. After school, the student would have to go and see a designated teacher (who happened to be my tenth grade history teacher) and have him sign that everything was completed properly. The next day, the teacher would specifically ask the student for any homework to be turned in or anything.

Yupa, if you don't mind me asking, what core classes specifically are you talking about? Some classes traditionally have different areas of emphasis than others do.

English and Algebra.

I think English teachers should grade a little bit on neatness, and it was always the math teachers at my school who would have weekly binder checks. Ugh. But I still don't think that organizational skills should be counted above learning the actual material.

I always suffered with that. Teachers wanted me to be neat and organized and I just wasn't able to do it because of my lack of motor skills, so I ended up desperate and crying, and suddenly they gave up and didn't grade my organization anymore.

For sixth grade and below I think it's a good idea. But, the teachers should also be flexible. The student should be able to choose HOW to organize notes and homework, as long as teacher and student agree that it is organized.

I say this because when I was in third grade, every prewrite and other outline was done in the bubble-web format, which was very confusing to my eyes and disorganized to my brain. I understood the introduction of the format, but to make it mandatory for future in-class writes was torture.

In high school, unless it's a class where most students are on the verge of dropping out, it should be a matter of personal responsibility.

When I was in middle school I would frequently lose my homework and stuff so I would get graded down, I think I was the one kid in class that actually liked tests.