Ok, this has been bugging me a lot lately so I need to get it off my chest. Why is it that schools continue to emphasize the “grade” and not the actual learning that takes place? My son just started middle school this year, and there now is increasing emphasis on “making the grade.” Students are obsessed with the A because they think that is how they will be judged, and they are right.
In the United States, and in many other countries, we are fixated on what grades students get. Anyone with children will know exactly what I mean. The same crappy system that was in place when we were kids is still in full effect.
What can we do about it?
Well, it depends. I think the one thing we can do as educators is to always emphasize that learning is always more important than the letter grade. Am I suggesting that we scrap the grade and get rid of scoring systems? No. But I wanted to bring this up now that I am knee-deep in it with my son and it’s fresh on my mind. We have a duty as parents and educators to remind our kids and students that grades will come if you work hard and have a great work ethic. We have to constantly remind them not to focus too much on the letter grade. It’s a tough job because the system doesn’t support emphasizing the learning over the grade.
Anyone ever ask you what grade you got in 6th grade math?…I thought not.
Enjoy your weekend.
About the Author
Educator Alfie Kohn wrote extensively on why the grade system is failure from various perspectives: “Punished by rewards”, subtitle “The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes”. It is exhaustive to read, yet deeply troubling.
In medical terms, one could easily say that there is a lot of negative evidence for giving grades.
You are of course absolutely right Rob, but I think it’s a two way street here and it is one that we as educators can use to our advantage. It’s not quite the point you are making in the post, but interested on your thoughts….
The phased ‘Assessment drives learning’ is an unavoidable truth. This is partly teacher led – in teaching what is going to be examined, but also, and arguably more so in health education student directed. Quite understandably they want to know what’s in the exam.
This relationship is essentially unavoidable, but it is something that we can use to our advantage if we construct our assessments correctly. If assessments are valid, reliable and fair then it is easier to create a direct link between what is then taught.
So, in the traditional model we see curriculum – defines teaching – defines assessment.
If we adjust that to curriculum – defines assessments – defines teaching we might be some way towards your goal.
vb
S
Anat Sci Educ. 2009 Oct;2(5):199-204.
Assessment drives learning: an unavoidable truth?
Wormald BW, Schoeman S, Somasunderam A, Penn M.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19743508
Thanks gents for your replies. There are multiple problems with the education system in the US and in many other countries. My biggest problem with the system is we are emphasizing things that we thought were really important 100 or more years ago, and we aren’t teaching our kids to be creative. My second biggest issue is the “focus on the A.” I was this way as a student growing up, and I think it’s an unhealthy way to learn. I know many other countries have the same issue, but it is REALLY bad in the United States. Something needs to change…
Pirsig covered thisdecades ago in ‘Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance’
It aint the grades that matter, natch
Great book!
No one asks me what I got in 6th grade maths. But they do ask me what I do. And I wouldn’t have got into medical school without the grades I got in high school.
It’s a crap system. But defining levels of achievement is a necessary evil at various stages.
The same applies for sports, music and plenty of other disciplines. I don’t want to watch the team that understands the game but can’t catch.
I won’t argue that for vocational learning, grades are irrelevant. But how do you pick who gets onto a competitive degree course without them?
A better system would be great. Any idea what that would be?
I wish I had a solution. The system is set up to reward those with higher grades. Plain and simple. I am by no means advocating for a system where we don’t grade folks and reward them for hard work. What I think happens, though, is the quest for the grade frequently becomes more important than the quest for knowledge. I base this on my own experience where people cram and study their butts off to get a high grade and forget the real reason they are doing it…to learn. It’s a weird system, and I think the education leaders need to take a hard look at students’ obsession with letter grades. Again, I don’t advocate getting rid of grades. I am where I am because of good grades, and I wouldn’t have been accepted to medical school without good grades. No solutions….perhaps some genius out there can help solve this problem. Thanks for your comment. Rob Rogers.
The difference between people like you and me is that we enjoy the process of learning for its own sake and the rewards it brings. We are less motivated by formal systems of assessments to continue our pursuit of knowledge. Unfortunately many people simply aren’t driven by this and there also needs to be some method of ensuring standards are met. Moreover, there are some fundamental skills that need to be obtained early in life that still remain a drudgery (e.g. spelling, times tables, grammatical rules) no matter how many innovative ways you try to teach them. Learning still requires discipline – a quality that for some reason has become politically-incorrect.
I wrote a post on this some time ago, based on my frustration when our different systems met. There are no grades in medical school in Sweden, you pass your exams, or you don’t. In elementary school the emphasis is on the interest in learning, rather than on the students’ grades (which they will now start getting in grade 6, instead of in grade 8).
I was always critical of our slack school system and my daughter started in an international school in grade 4. There were suddenly lots of strange rules that were not to be questioned. I didn’t mind too much, but when she started school in Botswana I saw the extreme of this. The student were supposed to copy whatever the teacher wrote on the board and were never allowed to discuss or question any statement. I was impressed by how they seemed to be ahead of us in maths. But when I asked three medical students, who were the top students of the country, how to dilute morphine into a 1 mg/ml solution, they didn’t know how to do it! My nine year old son could figure it out, though. It was as if they didn’t know how to apply what they had learned in the classroom.
Most junior doctors, even in residency, don’t spend time on reading journals and books. Having taught our junor doctors for some time, I have come to realize that this is not because of the lack of grades and assessment, but because they haven’t seen the need or known where to begin. Now that we have started having academic discussions they are becoming more and more active. What is driving them is their desire to develop into great doctors.