If anything, during my years of active teaching in the classrooms, once I stopped focusing on awards and grades as being a driver, my expectations for my students became higher. Helping students reach their fullest potential and help them achieve their dreams is a lot harder to do long-term, and will take a significant amount of dedication from both students and teachers.
This doesn’t stop at adulthood. I have seen teachers focus incessantly on winning recognition, not for the content of their work, but for how many votes they can receive from others. Does this short-term recognition do anything long-term for individuals other than providing a nice credit in their professional bio? I am not against awards, but I struggle when we lose focus on doing the work – I mean the hard work.
Here is the thing, kindergarten children don’t walk into schools wondering what their grade is or why they didn’t get an award. Schools condition them to do that. What seems innocent early on in school, can do damage later. Many teachers at higher levels struggle with having students do something that requires critical thinking in the process, and you might even hear, “Just give me the test so I can move on.” This is a learned behaviour through schools; “give me the assignment, I give it back, mark it, and let’s move on”.
As children go through the process of school, here are three things that inadvertently condition them (and sometimes could come from parents) within the process of school:
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- Grades as a driver
- Giving Awards
- Compliance VS Challenge: the good or the bad?
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Let’s start with the first point.
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Grades as a driver
As many schools are moving towards a comprehensive reporting system, sharing with their students through thorough comments and assessments of what they have learned, many students still ask, “What’s my grade?”, not worrying about the comments. Many parents do the same thing when they come around for an open house or open day school event.
Let’s understand that Grades, no matter how scientific we believe them to be, are subjective. Yes, if a spelling test is given, I can tell exactly how many words are spelled wrong and spelled right. But, how much do you weigh that spelling test on a final grade? If later in the year, a student can spell all of those same words correctly, are you using an average or are you disregarding previous tests and giving what they know at the time? If the job of teaching is to help students learn things they don’t know, why do we punish students later on in the year for learning the things they didn’t know through averages?
What about languages? What does an “A” grade look or sound like in teaching French, for example? One student could have the same ability in two different classes and get two different marks, yet if you want to hear how a student has improved in French, why not use podcasts or videos to hear them speak French throughout the year? This is so much more powerful than what any grade could provide to show growth. Do you teach students to get an ‘A’ grade, or do you focus on teaching them to be fluent? Many children can get an ‘A’ in French yet walk out of the classroom and not keep any of the language.
The gist is, that children do not walk into school asking for grades, but they do crave learning. We need to do whatever we can to keep their focus on that and it will be worth it all in the end.
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Giving Awards
Way too early, we teach students that our “best learners” need to be recognized for their achievements. Yet, sometimes our best learners are not the ones winning the awards. Sometimes it is our most compliant students, who have learned to play the game of school.
Here is a speech from a valedictorian, Jochebed Onyejemili, that I copied:
I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told to do in school. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave this school to go on to the next phase expected of me, to receive a document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer—not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition, a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave of my set. I did what I was told. While others sat in class and drew to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test or exam taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about something that interest them, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra study, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave eventually, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue yet, about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just to excel, not learn. And now, I’m really frightened.
Today, our students are seen as robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special. Every human on this planet is so special. So aren’t we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation rather than memorization, for creativity rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? Students are not in school just to get a certificate, accolades, or degree, to then get a job, so they can consume industry-approved placation after placation. I believe there is more to this.
We know and can affirm that many of our brightest students are not academically gifted. As schools, do we look for that brilliance? Do we recognize it when we see it? Let’s think about this, how often do we go to a conference or have a Professional Development (PD) day that is solely focused on getting better grades, as opposed to Professional Learning (PL) which is focused on finding genius in each one of our students? There is not one programme or procedure that can guarantee that all students will do well academically, but I guarantee you that if we looked for strengths in each one of the children we serve, we could find them, hence the suggestion of adopting the theory of Multiple Intelligences propounded by Howard Gardner to access children’s brilliance and not through rewards or grades.
Yet that genius is diminished based on how well a child does at school. Someone shared with me that during an award ceremony at their school, only students with a certain grade average were allowed to even attend. I know there are always two sides to the story, but some of your hardest-working students could miss these types of events because of factors outside of their control. We all know children learn differently, so why not reward them according to their abilities?
Let’s just get something clear here, I do not believe that you should give every student an award, and I am not discrediting schools that practice such. We tried to solve a problem that we seemed to create in education by moving from one side of the pendulum to the other. But letting students know they are valued and appreciated for their gifts is something that I believe in deeply (as an adult, don’t you want your boss to see the same thing whether you win an award or not?).
Just a question to think about, if you were to start a school from scratch, would awards for “top student” be a part of this plan? If not, then why do we continue with it in our current schools? If so, why?
As 21st century schools that we claim to be, we do really need a change of mindset significantly on this topic of discussion. Way too early, we teach students that our “best learners” need to be recognized for their achievements. Yet, sometimes our best learners are not the ones winning the awards. Sometimes it is our most compliant students, who have learned to play the game of school.
3. Compliance VS Challenge: the good or the bad?
I am guilty of saying this earlier in my teaching career, to this question that most students ask, “Why do we have to learn this?”
And the answer would be, “Because I said so.”
That’s it. No discussion. Do as I say because I am the adult or teacher here.
But “challenge” is a good thing, and it should be encouraged. Think of something as simple as providing a rubric for students. Do we ask, “What do you like about it and what would you change?”, or do we not bother because we are the “expert”?
Do we encourage children to share different worldviews on their own, or do we hope to convince them of what we believe? Do we understand that a student’s experience is not the same as our own, and does that encourage us to try to empathize and learn about them, or condition them to us?
Iron sharpens iron, as it is commonly said. We should not encourage students to only challenge their peers, but ourselves as teachers. This does not mean that they are disrespectful, but teaching students to challenge ideas and thoughts in powerful yet respectful ways is a great skill to be developed that makes us all better.
Now, as teachers, we do ask students to give us feedback on what they liked and what they didn’t appreciate after we have delivered a lesson (referring to teaching). They almost seem in shock that we would want them to challenge us, but if we are truly speaking to serve them, the only way I know we are on the right track for them is if we get their feedback.
When we remember that we serve the students and not the other way around, we see that challenge from our students is not only beneficial but crucial to growth to serve them.
We all know that children are curious when they walk into schools. If we aren’t careful, they will lose that along the way, becoming slowly lost in the process of “school”. There are so many things that are going on in our schools today that are currently amazing as well. I have seen more of a significant change in education in the past five years than in my previous ten as an education leader. With the emergence of many educational platforms on Facebook and Teachers’ Empowerment Programmes, with Teacher’s Training, to reform our educational system, and a host of many others which I may not remember to mention now. We are definitely on a sure path to a great transformation in our present era if we can change the narrative.
That being said, this doesn’t mean we can’t challenge our traditions and norms and continuously ask, “Is there a better way?”
This question should never be off-limits for anything we do in education. Let’s keep the flag of challenge flying for us to become better and better.
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