This will not be a very popular statement. In fact, I am not sure who will lash out at me more, my teacher friends, or my fellow moms (and dads). But here it is: I do not care about grades. If they did not have implications for his acceptance and admission to college, I really would not give a crap what my son's grades were, are, will be. I really do not care much about my students' grades either. Do not mistakenly believe I am not concerned about their progress or their learning. I just do not care what their report cards say. There, I said it.
I assure you my perspective has nothing to do with the softening of young people. I still believe in healthy competition. I do not think all players should get trophies and ribbons just for showing up, or even just for playing hard. I believe some children are smarter than others, some work harder than others, and some perform better than others, but these characteristics are not always in tandem. I think teachers and parents should always expect the best from their children, but they should also know that the result of one person's best may look quite different from another's.
As a parent and teacher I have come to understand how meaningless grades are. Grades do not indicate true learning has taken place. They tell us which students are good at school. And let's face it, just because a child can play the school game does not mean he or she has learned anything other than how to conform and fall in line. I am not suggesting they have learned nothing else, but it is quite possible for kids to do well in school without much in the way of substantial learning. Sure these students learn a powerful lesson about giving people what they want, and there are times in life where we do need to fall in line. But there are far more times when we should stand up and rock the boat. The world needs more boat rockers, but I digress.
Students who are motivated by good grades, usually because of the reactions they get from others (I always loved hearing my parents praise my excellent report cards, and even bragged about my son's straight A's to other family members and friends), can find lots of ways to earn A's. Many of them cram and memorize in order to perform well on tests, they cater to their teachers' biases when they complete assignments, some even cheat. It is possible because of sheer intelligence that some of them do not even give that much effort. But I wonder how many of them have actually learned something, and can we do a better job finding out if they have?
One thing has become painfully clear to me as a teacher (and really as a parent too). Kids do not do anything they do not want to do. If they are not motivated to do something, we need to give them a reason to want to do it. For some kids, grades work as a motivator, but for others it does not. So if I do not care about grades, how do I make my son care about grades? Thus far, I have been relatively unsuccessful. In elementary school, my son was the kid who knew half the curriculum before he walked in. He was a good student in that he liked attending school, participated in class discussions and activities, and did well on tests. He even did homework with little argument (except for essay writing). Truth be told, he earned straight A's during those years pretty effortlessly, and we commended him for it with praise and pride. My mom, despite my insistence not to, even gave him a $5.00 bill each time he brought home one of those stellar report cards. Nevermind how little he did to earn it.
Middle school was a different story, because he not only had to show up and participate, he was saddled with minutia such as reading logs (liked to read and good at it, hated keeping a log), homework (sorry folks, but except for math, largely meaningless assignments), and computerized reading tasks in programs in which he pre-tested as a college level reader. His grades, not so hot. At times, they were even alarming. But, here is where I make my point. He was learning. How do I know? All I had to do was eat dinner with him each night, watch a TV program with him, listen to him apply what he learned to things he was reading and doing. He can talk about scientific concepts, techological applications, important moments in history. He memorized a world map for geography class (got 87% on the final), has impeccable grammar, and has an awesome working vocabulary. He reads online incessantly about things that interest him, and teaches himself things by reading and watching YouTube videos. He is one of those kids who drives other kids nuts because he loves standardized test days, because he gets to finish up quickly and take a nap. And of course the added bonus that there is a moratorium on homework and other assignments during testing week thrills him. He has scored near perfect in every subject on them every grade since 3rd. So what do his grades mean? They mean he is a nonconformist. They mean, he understands that he is learning and taking what he wants and needs from school. Through his mom's mom eye, he is a dream, a self-motivated learner. But through his mom's teacher eye, and his own teachers' eyes, he is a challenge, because we know how important those stupid grades are for him to get into college.
High school has been different, clearly he is motivated by how his grades will impact his ability to attend a university with a program of study that interests him. Grades have improved, but it is still a constant struggle for him to show his learning in the way the school system demands. Must he conform? Do I want him to?
This brings me back to my own students. My experience as a mother constantly feeds my decisions as a classroom teacher. I reflect and ask myself questions like, do I really need to collect and grade that? What will it tell me about my students' learning? Is it measuring learning, or is it just a tool for measurement (aka something to put in the gradebook). The problem leads right back to the faults in today's school system. What exactly are we measuring? This obsession with data as a means for holding people accountable feels contrived. When will decision makers understand that real learning, true "real world" learning, means that we can apply learning principles, study habits, literacy skills to learn about the things that are important to us, and use them in our daily lives for work and for pleasure? School collected data and grades will never be able to measure this, and to me this is what will make my students, and my son successful.
As a student of curriculum and instruction, I am a believer that the purpose of education (something I was asked to consider, read about, write about, and reconsider iteratively in grad school) is to enlighten, educate, and develop our youth to become citizens in a democratic society. Whether I agree with the choices and the beliefs of these citizens when they are grown is irrelevant. Our purpose is to help them learn to think and become independent in their views, their search for livelihood and happiness, fulfillment. It is not to prepare them for specific jobs, or to choose their paths, or to grade them on how well they play school.
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