Entry # 29:
The Holy Grail of school
is not learning but grades
I spent the last two days with my 10-month old niece, Ashley. She is, of
course, the most adorable, most intelligent child who has ever walked this
earth. Everything she does is worthy of cheers and applause from all who
witness it. She is amazing.
At 10 months, she is already taking her first solo steps while beguiling
all of us to assist her by grabbing our fingers and zooming away to far-off
corners of the dwelling. She is determined in everything she attempts, and
she does not give up until she figures it out or gets her way. She is unstoppable.
As I watched her I wondered what happens between this time where children
push to absorb and figure out everything in their universe and the time
when learning is no longer a priority. Even my most motivated students seem
to see learning as a consequence but not the main goal of education.
What is their main goal? From the unmotivated to the motivated, the Holy
Grail of school is not learning but grades. Specifically A's.
"But I'm an A student!"
This past week was a stressful week for my students and me. Spring Break
is upon us. Our grades had to be turned in last Friday, and, following the
trend of many years, grades had dipped during this third quarter. The long
stretch after Christmas break is rough for all of us, and students' effort
and motivation seems to evaporate during these dreary winter months.
All Friday, as I had promised, I told students their grades, talked about
general mistakes such as not completing work after an absence or losing
papers, and conferenced with students individually about specific strengths
and problems. Some students were elated, some were resigned, some were indignant,
and two others were brought to tears.
I had been thinking all week about grades and their effect on students.
Some students' identities are wrapped up in the letter grades they receive
for their course subjects. My student, Scott, is a prime example. Scott
is a motivated A-student who excels at everything in school. When he found
out Friday that he earned a C in my class for the quarter, he burst into
tears. Even as I showed him the missing assignments and low scores on projects,
he continued to cry and say, "But I'm an A-student!"
Scott's reaction is not uncommon. Students envision themselves as a particular
letter grade or type of student. They seem to believe their grades are a
given, static, an extension of who they are. Not only that, but they see
their peers as being specific letter grades as well.
I used to think that if I could get all my students to see themselves as
A-students, they would be successful. But is that really true? Does earning
a letter grade really mean anything important? Or does it simply mean they
jumped through the right hoops?
The "grades-as-all" philosophy
As students, grades were not very important to me, though they were to my
parents. Fortunately, my parents also put a high priority on learning. Whatever
grade I earned was fine as long as I had done the very best I could. My
parents taught me how to jump through the hoops, but they also taught me
how to think and learn.
I think of all the classes I had to take in high school, and I am ashamed
to say there are very few classes where my grades reflected what I learned
and not the hoops I jumped through. I went to a blue ribbon high school
(it is still the only one in our state I believe), yet if I put my mind
to it, very few classes stand out in my mind.
In most of my literature classes I skipped reading any assigned novel. I
found that if I paid attention to the teacher and listened carefully to
what my classmates said about the book, I could not only ace the tests and
essays, but I could also make valuable contributions to class discussions.
Though English was my favorite class, I only really participated as a learner
in one -- a college-level senior composition class.
My teacher in this class demanded excellence from us, requiring evidence
from the text to support our comments during class discussions. He made
literature come alive, pushed us to form our own opinions and interpretations.
I remember getting an A in his class instead of an H (for Honors), and telling
him I wanted the honors grade. He replied, "Then you'll have to think
harder." Not turn in more assignments, not do extra credit, but THINK.
I think of myself as a teacher, and I know I am guilty of promoting the
grade-as-all belief myself. "Don't you want to get a 4 on this assignment?
If you change this and this, you'll be there." Even my "failure
is not an option" philosophy smacks of the grade-as-all belief. It
is all well intended, but I can see it is wrong.
Grades vs. learning
I have come to see that learning and grades are not necessarily related.
One may learn little but still get high grades, and one may learn a lot
but get low grades. The science teacher on my team and I were talking about
how we put too much emphasis on grades instead of learning. We thought our
focus was skewed by having to assign grades, that we forgot to concentrate
on what our students learned. It is not deliberate, but that subtle focus
on grades in our school culture does affect us.
We wondered, what if we gave up assigning grades and focused on being sure
students learned the material? What if we used terms like "mastery"
with our students instead of "A" or "B" or "4"?
Ideally, grades are supposed to reflect learning, but do they really? A
certain degree of teacher error enters every assignment. Does every assignment
I give accurately assess each concept I teach? What do you do about incomplete
or missing assignments? How do you deal with the student who is just having
a bad day or week and bombs the assignment? How are you sure A work is really
A work? Mastery work?
I am doing some things in my classroom that support the idea of learning,
of mastery, rather than hoop jumping. I include reflective pieces where
students assess their own learning and what they could do to improve the
next time. I discuss returned assignments with classes and individuals to
point out strengths and weaknesses. I allow and require students to revise
any assignment to meet the criteria and earn a higher grade. Still, I have
the sense that this is not enough, that many times my students are still
grade-centered instead of learning-centered. That bothers me.
A class discussion about grades
I spent most of my fourth block on Friday discussing my homeroom's grades
with them. It started out as just another conversation about grades, but
it ended up being a conversation about learning. One student asked, "Why
does it bother you so much if we earn low grades?" I told them that
D's and F's were an indication to me that they had not learned the material,
had not even come close to mastery. I shared with them my experiences of
jumping through the hoops my teachers had set up for me, but how I had pushed
myself to learn on my own while giving them what they wanted.
I told them about how their seventh grade language arts teacher and I worked
together closely and how I knew what she expected them to be able to do
next year, and how it worried me that some people would not be prepared.
I told them I knew not all teachers focused on learning but that my students
should, and as long as they understood when and how to jump through the
hoops, a world of opportunities for learning would be open to them.
I wish I could tell my students to ignore the hoops, but even I know that
to dismiss them would not only frustrate them but would also close a lot
of doors for them. I had to learn that lesson myself, though it was painful.
I remember a literature teacher I had in college who encouraged us to think
but in the end graded us on spitting back the interpretations she gave us
in class.
After one dismal test I asked, "But I supported my beliefs with facts
from the text; didn't you tell us that was what we were supposed to do?"
She replied, "I read Dante's Inferno in the original
Latin, and I had a semester-long study on it, so I know
what it means. You are wrong." I never made the mistake of expressing
my opinion about a piece of literature in her class again, though I continued
to form my own opinions in secret. I am convinced I learned more from myself
in her class than I ever did from her, but I jumped through the hoop to
earn the grade so I could become a teacher.
Are grades just another external reward?
As a new teacher I often railed against Alfie Kohn and the admonition against
external rewards. As I have grown and developed classroom management skills,
I have depended less and less on incentive plans and outright bribery and
more on personal goal setting and internal rewards from learning. My question
is, if students focus on the grades, not on the learning, aren't grades
just another external reward?
I do not know how to completely change the focus from grades to learning
yet, but I see the need to make that change.
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