Mediocre students make the “good effort” honor list

Why?

I am learning a couple of things right now, on my own, for the joy of it (although they do have relevance to my career). The way I am learning is picking up books on the subjects I am interested in, reading them, and then putting them to use on my own personal projects.

I don't want a grade. I don't need a grade. A grade isn't going to help my learning in any way. I don't even need a grade to prove that I know anything... if I ever need to do this (i.e. on a job interview) I will be prove my knowledge by explaining what I know, or even by showing the work that I have done.

The last class I took was a graduate level computer science class on a technology I was interested in. I cared a little about the grade only because I needed it to have the class reimbursed-- but the grade didn't do anything to motivate me. And this technology is on my resume... no one cares about the grade. They ask about what I know and what I have done with it.

My 5 year old daughter has the same experience. She learned how to read, pretty much on her own. I didn't force her... the motivation was hers. She has never received a grade for reading... in fact, I don't she has much praise (in fact, with some of her friends she hides the fact she can read out of embarrassment). But, she reads because she wants to read.

Learning is natural. It is part of human nature.

Grades are useful in one case... when you have to force someone to learn something they don't want to learn. It seems that this is a situation that should be avoided as much as possible.

The risk is that by training people to respond to grades as a motivation, we take away the natural joy of learning that is in our genes

Grades are, at most a necessary evil.

I work with special ed kids in 7th grade. As with any group of students, some of them put little effort in and some put much effort in. It is excruciating to all involved when a kid works hours and hours - more than his or her typical peers - only to score Fs and Ds. These typical peers may be getting As and Bs with no effort at all. I dunno. In that circumstance I think the sped student deserves a little recognition.

I might agree on the necessary evil aspect, except for the elements of actually testing that a person has comprehended something and is compentent to act in their field. Your first test should not be a surprise at, say, 24.

My grammar school that I spoke of only graded, as I remember, on satisfactory and unsatisfactory re subjects, though we did have papers with stars, and so on.

Last time I took a class, it was my seventh in italian. Snort! I'm so miserable at it! We wrote essays in italian about the italian books we read. Mine were covered in red marks, exclamations and explanations. I got the usual A-. My teacher and I became personal pals, as our musings interested each other, however wretchedly written mine were.

It's a very utopian view and I'd be the last person to wish it wasn't so in real life too. Alas, it is not.

And one more issue.

Grades (particularly in K-12 education) reward compliance. Kids are very given given rote exercises that are useless to them. But if a kid is smart enough to figure this out, and rational enough to skip it, they are penalized.

I get really upset sometimes at the exercises that my son is given in math or science. Rote exercises that teach skills that my son will almost certainly not need (when is the last time you needed to factor a polynomial). These exercises miss the important part of math... the underlying meaning and the thinking skills (and yes creativity) to look at problems in different ways.

But, I can't complain. When I was a teacher I did the same. You realize that in a class of 25 kids, there are going to be 5 or 6 who can think abstractly and grasp more concepts. But you have to give assignments (and grades) that will meet the needs of the 19 or 20 kids who can follow instructions-- but don't have the desire or maybe even the ability to really understand the concepts deeply.

Let's be honest here. Much of the work that kids do to get grades don't benefit them. I have seen from three perspectives, as a parent, as a student myself and as a teacher.

Creativity and assertiveness and self-directed learning are three things that are very useful in life. These things are deliberately squelched by our grade-based education system.

You'll have a hard time convincing people that multiplication tables and verb tenses are useless.

I think your vision of the educational experience would work for kids who know what they want to do early on, ebrown, or for the ones who are enlightened enough early on to savor the karmic experience of learning for its own sake... but most kids aren't like that. At least not at the K-12 age. If they are, great. If they are not, giving them a "good effort reward" is not going to teach it to them. For those kids, I don't mind making them factor polynomials on the off-chance that they will become interested in doing so at some other point. At least they will know it's an option.

I don't know what to say about that, what to do about it. I know several people shunted into categories years ago who are brilliant. I guess I'll say again, more attention.

Kids learn verb tenses just fine before they are prodded, quizzed or graded. Any normal five year old has mastered the verb tenses just fine before they enter school. Obviously grades aren't necessary for for this task.

I don't know my multiplication tables. I have a degree in Physics (with some post-graduate courses) and a high tech career. I have never needed to know my multiplication tables. When you understand what multiplication means... you don't need to memorize tables.

Funny enough... I have started memorizing tables. I have become addicted to Poker, and I need to be able to calculate statistics very quickly. So, I have generated a bunch of tables and have been working through them with flash cards.

But look. Here I am in my forties needing to pick up new knowledge. And, I care about the topic, I have been working quite diligently. The fact that I wasn't taught poker hand frequencies in high school isn't a problem, I see the need now and am picking it up just fine.

This is knowledge I am picking up on my own with no grades or quizzes.

Whether or not grades are necessary for this task, you'll have a hard time convincing anyone that verb tense exercises are useless. Besides, having taught at three different colleges I must be the bearer of the bad news that not all kids do know their tenses just fine, and I'm not seeing how getting rid of grades will suddenly make it fine. For the few who would magically become more receptive to the nirvana of learning for learning's sake, great. For the others, I worry.

the honour roll was great, i made the honours club in 9th grade which allowed me the opportunity to go on the honours club camping trip early in october of 10th grade, where i learned that smoking pot was a million times better than being in the honours club, i think every kid should get that chance

Shapeless, you are twisting my positions. I never said that verb tense exercises are useless (in fact I gave an example where I personally found a rote memorization exercise helpful). Nor did I say that getting rid of grades will suddenly make it fin (obviously education is a challenging field).

Let me state these two points clearly.

1. Education works much better when the learning is motivated by her own desire to understand something. This is much more common then you make it out to me (don't we have examples where we learned without being spurred by grades?)

2. Grades are primarily for the benefit of educators, not students. The only possible good that a grade can do for a student is to provide artificial motivation. All of us have examples where we had natural motivation for learning-- and in these cases we do just fine without external pressure.

Grades are mostly used to show the teacher how she is doing, and the provide a her a cudgel for students who aren't interested in a particular subject.

Will there also be an honor role for Physicians, who show up for work at the hospital on time, perform surgery ( to the best of their very limited ability, and pay their insurance premiums each and every month.

Maybe there could be an honor roll for most attempted surgeries ( botched and sucessful ). Isn't the most important thing the fact that the Docs did "try"? Just like the little "C" student kids?

A big demand for flashlights?

No, test results benefit society, at least some of the time. You want your md's to be apprised of current procedures plus which bones connect to which bones? Your architects to get it (I've a friend who failed the exams nine times)? Your civil engineers to be able to at least do grading?

Competence is a valuable trait, even commodity. Stratification will happen. People have different abilities, which, with wisdom, we'll foster.

Some people are terrifically creative and may be bored in school or busy sneezing. I sound rigid, but I'm all for non-regular schooling, if..

which brings up today's nyt article that I'm not clear on -
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/nyregion/21stanns.html?_r=1

Not true. Where English is the 2nd language, kids may have trouble with English tenses. Likewise, even where English is the only language spoken at home, often times where the parents have a very limited education, the kids have problems in that environment learning the proper use of English.

Their only hope is that they can attend a good school in their neighborhood that teachs solid English fundamentals and greatly encourages reading. Use of a good neighborhood library is preferable to day and night texting.

I am not against testing for doctors or architects. These are professions with specific bodies of knowledge. The people in these professions are there by choice. And the things on these tests are (hopefully) specifically relevant to these jobs at hand.

This is different then grades given to public school students.

Miller,

I have first hand experience with kids who are English language learners. The key is to first, provide a supportive environment and then to provide lots of exposure to English (English learners in a home with no English speakers is a real challenge).

Lots of kids do this just fine... and even for older kids, most of the learning is done outside of the classroom.

So, they don't get to grow up to be doctors or engineers or architects?

Really, ebrown, that's limiting. To some extent, I think softness is condescending.

Harshness is condescending.

Kids grow up to be Engineers in spite of grades, not because of them. I know this from personal experience... I grew up to be an Engineer. Most of us have a natural love of and aptitude in mathematics and a surprising number of us got poor grades in mathematics. Yet, we solve problems very well... and we even, at times, sit around and invent problems for ourselves to solve.

I saw this as well... some of the kids who got very good grades in math and science aren't ever going to be engineers. They got good grades because they did what they were told and learned how to put the numbers in the correct places. Some of the kids who got poor grades were brilliant... but they didn't see the point in complying.

You may this is bad teaching... but what can a teacher do. I taught a Physics class that every student had to take to graduate. It wouldn't be fair that the 80% (or 90%) of kids who didn't have the natural love and aptitude to grasp deep interesting concept couldn't work hard enough to earn an 'A', could I?

I had more then one student who (as I did when I was a student) would come to me after class with real fascinating questions that showed they were developing a deep understanding of topics that interested them. Yet some of these students didn't do the work of the class.

Could I give these kids a good grade when they weren't meeting the requirements of the class?

Could I not give these kids a good grade when they clearly had a deeper understanding of Physics then any of the other students who did the work I assigned?

(What happened is that these kids did not get a good grade... a point which bothered me but I was part of the system, so I really had no choice. However, I imagine that these quite bright kids are now successful engineers in spite of my lack of encouragement).