Thanks for the response. I’ve tried to avoid arguing whether it is a good or bad thing that grades unavoidably become a currency in school. I think most schools and teachers work pretty hard, even in America (at least within the system), to decouple grades from their currency aspects for a lot of good reasons and on many different levels. In my own classroom I try to avoid grades as much as possible, but no matter what I do, they intrude, often in necessary ways for motivation or value, but also often so thoroughly that I have to wonder if we are doing the right thing in struggling so hard against an element to the job that can’t be defeated.