Grades

Interesting article by Alfie Kohn about grades. Rarely do we ask the question WHY we are giving them in the first place. If the answer seems obvious, is that an indicator that something might be getting overlooked?

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/grading.htm

Step 1: Philosophy

In writing a philosophy of education on which to base a school, I thought the best place to start would be to write down those values that I thought would be most beneficial for a school to promote. On a day when I was either feeling particularly inspired or angry at my current school, I came up with about 13 things that I would like to see promoted in an educational setting. After eliminating less important ones and consolidating those that fit into broader ones, I narrowed it down to three. Submitted to you for comment and criticism, here are what I have come up with.

1. Education should emphasize teaching the tools of learning over the communication of knowledge.

Our content should be outstanding. We should be hiring people who have not only an exceptional knowledge of their subject matter but also a contagious enthusiasm for it. That being said, content should not be the primary emphasis of the school. That position belongs to the teaching of the skills needed for learning. As Dorothy Sayers says in her essay entitled The Lost Tools of Learning: “For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.” Content, long holding the central position in education, should be treated as grist for the mill of critical, creative, and analytical thought. When appropriate, students should be encouraged to learn and think independently of the teacher.

To this end, we as a school should also make a commitment to what works, not what has always been done. As we encourage students to experiment, take risks, and investigate life, we should demonstrate a similar approach as we teach them.

For too long, process has been confused with product in the educational system. It simply is not the case that if a person goes through twelve years of our current system, that they can be considered an educated person. They are merely a “schooled” person. “Schooling” is not what we are after. We wish to pursue methods that treat learning as a life-skill, not something that only occurs in the walls of an institution.

With this in mind, grades should be treated as the things they were meant to be: a tool for the assessment of mastery, not as a goal or an end in themselves. This single flaw in the current educational system has been one of the biggest causes for its inefficiency and ineffectiveness in educating today’s youth. It has drained inspiration from the learning process. It has pitted teachers against pupils, parents against teachers, and parents against their children. It encourages students toward mediocrity, and it does very little to ultimately prepare students to be functioning, thoughtful contributors to humankind. Its current use, therefore, should not be emulated.

While it will be necessary for students to, at times, be divided by age, a sense of unity and cohesion among the student body will be fostered through: 1) times of general learning (where all students of a certain developmental level are taught together) and 2) Encouraging older students to play a role in the education of younger students. Within reason and when necessary, students in individual classes will be divided not by a particular age, but by subject and skill level.

2. Education should be worthwhile and relevant to a student.

How many times have the words “When am I ever going to use THIS?” been uttered by a student? All too often in our educational system, students simply don’t see what they are doing as meaningful. This results in lack-luster performance, unethical behavior (usually exhibited in the form of cheating or plagiarism), and an increase in anxiety and feelings of meaninglessness.

One of the biggest causes of this is the method we use to educate. First, while it is true that most students can say that their education was grounded in the realities of this life, they are taught about those realities in circumstances that couldn’t be more removed from it. While lectures might be necessary at times, and books are certainly important, to make them the sole means of passing wisdom from one generation to the next is absurd. Even the current trend toward “open discussion” falls short when compared to the effectiveness of actually learning by experiencing life. For this reason, students will be encouraged to learn in the most direct method possible. If studying botany, students will learn by observing plants. If astronomy, they will observe stars. Field study will be pursued.

Second, the process of dividing subjects up into neatly separated classes removes all content from any meaningful context. While specialization of labor may make sense in a factory, it does not benefit students to see history as being completely unrelated to literature and math. Integration between these subjects will be encouraged as much as possible, with all content being centered on a history curriculum.

Third, one of the biggest areas of neglect in our school system is practical skills. While most students are expected to be able to analyze Shakespeare when they graduate (at least they are on paper), they are not expected to be able to balance a checkbook or change the oil in a car. As much as possible, we will encourage the teaching of practical skills. For some, this will mean incorporating into their program a trade school education. For others, it will mean pursuing internships with “hands on” experience in one of their fields of interest. These three points under this value can be summed up in three words: Experiential, Integrated, and Practical.

3. Education should encourage students toward a sense of identity and purpose, not just toward academic accomplishment.

Knowledge, pursued for its own sake, puffs a person up, making them arrogant and giving them a sense of superiority. We are not training people solely for the purpose of making sure they have a job in the future, although we recognize the need for skills that allow a person to make a living and will promote their adoption by students. We are not training people to gain status in the eyes of those around them. We hope to facilitate students into an understanding of who they are as individuals, how they fit into the world around them, and what their responsibility to it is. We believe this to be the culmination of the previous two values.

For this reason, we hope to educate the entire person. Issues of theology and philosophy will be central to learning content, especially in the upper levels.

According to the NYT...

...there is definitely something wrong with America's young people. Agreeing on what it is might be more difficult.

Here is the article.

The Lost Tools of Learning

Dorothy Sayers presented this essay entitled "The Lost Tools of Learning" at Oxford in 1947. Her descriptions of the deficiencies in the product of our educational system is amazing. What's scary is that people still don't seem to see it. What she describes here, though, at the beginning of her essay is what I see every day.

The End of Education

As I've said before, I believe institutional education to be in serious jeopardy in America. Part of this I believe is process... HOW we approach education is destroying it, because our approach is so antithetical to what the goals of education should be. But herein lies the other problem. What is the goal, or end, of education?

The Greeks believed that education had a moral element to it. Part of this stemmed from the Ancient Greek preoccupation with reason. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle propounds the idea that a virtue, in essence, is a characteristic that allows a certain object or entity to better perform its function or purpose. Aristotle also believed that reason was a characteristic unique to humans, and, in fact, was the primary distinguishing characteristic between humans and animals. It makes sense, then, that education would be of utmost importance. Education helps us be more reasonable, and, thus, to be better people, at the same time enhancing whatever other virtuous traits we have.

Whatever you believe about the Greek fixation with reason, I find their purpose for education to be far more noble than what our current society sees as being the goal for education.

I've had this conversation in my classes before. I know Jimmy has, as well. They go something like this:

Me: "So, if you guys hate this so much, then why are you here?"

At this point, there is usually a long, engaged discussion about personal choices. They see themselves as being FORCED to be in school. I try to point out to them that no one FORCES them to be in school. They simply see it as being more desireable than the alternatives. If they left, and were under a certain age, they could get in trouble with the authorities. Those that are old enough to avoid this would get in trouble with their folks. But this doesn't take away from the fact that, every day, students DO choose to drop out and do something else, and that, for whatever reason, the students I'm talking with have chosen NOT to do this. Those that understand this eventually move on to the following portion of the discussion.

Student: "We're here because we need to get an education."
Me: "But why?"
Student: "Because we need to get good grades so we can get into a good college."
Me: "Why does it matter that you get into a good college."
Student: "Because I want to eventually have a good job." (Mind you that, every response that is given is made with the tone of "Duh, you idiot... everyone knows this. Why are you asking me such obvious questions?")
Me: "Why do you need a good job?"
Student: "So we can make enough money to be comfortable."

I have this conversation about once a year. Frankly, I'm being nice by putting the word "comfortable" there at the end, because, in actuality, few students use that word. Most of them say what many think but are mature enough to not allow to escape their lips. They say they need that money to be happy. A few understand what they've just said as the words leave their mouths.

This is what we've trained students to believe is the goal of education: The Almighty Dollar. Parents reinforce this idea a lot. I remember my own telling me how many more thousands of dollars a year every "A" translates into once you're finally in the job market (And, given what I'm making now, you'd never know that I had higher than an A+ average in high school, a 3.98 gpa in my undergrad work, and graduated with a 4.0 when I got my master's degree. I COULD have sailed through with a "C" average).

But, as with most things, it isn't just parents. It's our whole system. It's no secret that schools hold up as a sign of prestige how much scholarship money has been offered to students who are graduating from their institution. So not only can studying hard translate to bigger bucks when you get out of college, SAVING money is the best known reason for maintaining grades in high school.

But it runs even deeper than this. Remember how I said in my previous post how many school districts are cutting funds to their social studies programs, or relying on the most disinterested of faculty members to teach those classes? At the same time, math and science programs enjoy across the board increases in their funding, along with a greater emphasis paid to it by everyone from high school counselors to producers of "educational television"? It's because conventional wisdom is telling us (through all the talking heads and pundits that the job market is screaming for more engineers and computer programmers and the like, and we'd better provide them, or gloomy things await us in the future. So what do we do? Like lemmings, we give this "job market" exactly what its experts say it is demanding.

Aristotle would be spinning.

I do not believe that the proper purpose of educating kids is to prepare them for the "job market". You educate kids because it is the perfect time to instill in them a sense of identity, guide them toward wisdom, and teach them that life should be embraced experientially and intellectually (to be honest, I'd settle for having them do the former, and I know plenty of people who, while they don't bury themselves in books, revel in taking life in. Unfortunately, most of the kids I work with do neither).

I've only read one of Neil Postman's books. But another book of his I plan on reading is called The End of Education. In it, he claims that the mythological stories, the ones that most societies have used to pass down a sense of identity and a moral foundation to its kids, is sorely lacking in our educational system. We misrepresent what we give them as being "pure, unadulterated facts" and encourage them NOT to think about it in the methods we use. I couldn't agree more. The only thing that we have given them to chase is a life of comfort. In my mind, it's no wonder that our kids don't see any purpose behind our educational system, and that only those who are truly internally motivated or those who have developed a healthy respect for "following the rules" really seem to be driven in our nation's schools. It's also no wonder that schools in just about every other developed country in the world kick our tail.

Maybe I'm too much of an idealist, but I firmly believe that if you give a kid a good understanding of how the world works, and how he or she fits into it, as well as the skills to be able to find, process, and use information, that by the time they're eighteen, they will be capable of mastering anything that a college or employer will throw at them, and have a healthier self-image and sense of proportion to boot.