Grades vs Education

[TheBeardedDude]

I teach lab courses at a University (my second university as a Teaching Assistant) and I have a friend at the same university who teaches introductory English/writing courses and this is a topic he and I have had many a good rant on, because students clearly value grades over the education that the grades are supposed to reflect.

An example is the flood of students that any given instructor will get at the end of the semester asking one of 3 things:
1) Is there any extra credit I can do?
2) I thought my grade was higher than that, are you sure you recorded this correctly?
3) I really want an A (or B+ or whatever), I worked really hard and think I deserve it.

The answers to these questions are:
1) You should worry less about "extra" credit and do more to get the regular credit. Don't ask for extra.

2) If a grade was recorded incorrectly, that is a legitimate concern but often the mistake is nonexistent or is one where a grade was incorrectly entered but has no net effect on the course grade because the change was minimal.

3) The grade you get is the grade you earned (unless the instructor grades as forgiving as I do, then your grade is actually already inflated), don't ask for a better grade. I am not here to pad your GPA, I am here to help you learn. That is the important bit here, HELP YOU LEARN.


What do you people think? Is there too much emphasis on grades in the education system? (this may primarily apply to the US)