A few weeks ago, Jonah got his first report card of the year. They have dumped the old system of As and Bs and Cs. That's old school. Some genius figured that if they change As to Es for Excellent and Bs to Gs for Good, everyone would feel warm and fuzzy and not end up as one of those angry kids in the ads for the Huntington Learning centers.
Jonah got mostly Es or E-s for the academic work. He got a
G+ for handwriting, which was totally generous. He should have gotten
the equivalent of a C-. I'm not sure what letter that is now. Maybe it is a
EM for emerging skill, which is code for barely legible.
He got
all Gs for the specials, like art, music, and health. I'm not quite
sure how they come up with a grade for health. How do you grade sixty
anti-smoking posters? So, I e-mailed all the special teachers to ask
them why Jonah got Gs and what he had to improve. They didn't really
have to much to say. They just said that a G was a perfectly good grade
and that if he wanted to improve, he should stop talking to his friends
and be neater.
For most teachers, grades are really based on
the appearance of caring. So, I explained this to Jonah and said that
he should be neater and stop making fart jokes in class, but he should
keep handing in the same work. If he did this, the teacher would think
he cared and give him a better grade. He was rather stunned by this
information, but it's an important life lesson.
When we've
tried to get extra help for Jonah's handwriting in the past, his
teachers told us that in the future, people wouldn't need to write. In
college, they told us, kids only use laptops. And Steve and I snorted
and shouted, "BLUE BOOKS. HELLO?" And they didn't believe us.
<Slight
digression.> College students shouldn't text message their
professors when they really need a big favor. The message should
contain capitals, punctuation, and the word "you" should be fully
written out.<digression over>
Appearances and first
impressions also come into play during this first part of the semester
when I have to deal with a very important part of university life. A
part that I am woefully ill-prepared. Remembering student names.
I
have 62 students in two classes this semester. I make a good faith
effort at learning everybody's names as quickly as possible. The names
that I remember first are the tough ones. The ones that I horribly
mispronounce the first time around and the student corrects me. Those
are the first that I learn properly. I can store permanently about five
new names per class. The kids with the purple hair, the wild glasses,
foreign accents, or large moles come next. The ones that participate
frequently come next, because I can hook a name to a personality. The
kids with unremarkable names — John, Caitlyn, Christy, Matt, Steve,
wear grey, hooded sweat shirts, and never talk are the hardest.
So,
get an unusual name, die your hair, get a tattoo, then people will
remember you. I'm not sure if that translates into a better grade, but
I bet if you combine it with good handwriting, it might get you an E-.
Apt. 11d 
You make a good point for the value of promoting yourself as a good student when it comes to bumping up the marks. I despair of getting eldest to understand how a little more effort to keep her desk and locker tidy will pay off in better marks (maybe I’ll have her read your post). It may sound silly, but it’s clear when someone puts in that bit of effort and there’s “wiggle room” in the marks, that it pays off.
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When I was teaching, in any class there would be two or three students whose names I would know, but I would never know which kid went with which name. Make sense? I would know that those three are Ashley, Jennifer, and Michelle, but which one is Ashley, which is Jennifer, and which is Michelle? Aaarg! No way could I keep that straight!
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I had that same grading system in the first elementary school I went to (late 70’s, early 80’s)– E, VG, G, S, U– and that school was as far from touchy-feely as you can possibly imagine!!! When I left that school after 3rd grade (partially because it was a harsh and miserable place to be a kid, even with all my Es and VGs), I swiched to a much more pleasant school with traditional grades. So, ya never know!
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“For most teachers, grades are really based on the appearance of caring. So, I explained this to Jonah and said that he should be neater and stop making fart jokes in class, but he should keep handing in the same work. If he did this, the teacher would think he cared and give him a better grade. He was rather stunned by this information, but it’s an important life lesson.”
We *just* had this conversation with our 13 year old. He still hasn’t absorbed this lesson and will be appearing in a Huntington Learning Center ad soon. Just last night in fact, I was looking over a PowerPoint he was doing on Watergate. The title slide said “Watergate: It’s not really about water.” I said, you know, that’s funny, but sadly teachers don’t appreciate humor, especially on the title slide. He got rid of it. His goal is to either be a physicist or the next Stephen Colbert. Sigh.
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I went to elementary school at pretty much the same time as Deeni. I think my school had just V, G, S, and U. I always got S- for penmanship and by eighth grade I stopped using cursive for everything but my signature. For grade school, I’m not so worried about grading systems. But, the Pittsburgh Public Schools just created a rule that the lowest grade you can get is 50%. That one sort of worries me.
Also, I found that if you appeared to care (or actually did care — I was an officious little kid), you could make stupid jokes with only a rare negative consequence. Especially if you are making a joke that indicates you were paying attention. I never did break that habit. My undergraduate thesis, contained the phrase “Sen. Edward Kennedy (DUI, Mass).” (Only the copy to my advisers, not the one for the university.)
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I find it depressing that there’s a perceived need to coach a first grader on getting their grades up. And why are we so eager to simply accept that appearances count for more than they should? Isn’t this a case where our goal should be to *fix* the system, not game it? In adult life, when appearances are allowed to play too large a role women and minorities are at a serious disadvantage.
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Jen, this isn’t about personal appearances, but the neatness of the work/work area. Teaching means reading hundreds of assignments and putting some sort of order in a room with a couple dozen little whirlwinds of destruction. It simply can’t be done well if the kids don’t put some effort into neatness (says the man who now realizes how much of a pain he must have been to poor Ms. S, Sr. L, Mrs. W, etc).
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Yeah, yeah, we had that same grading system too. Same as Jonah’s, I think, although I don’t actually think we did get + and -. Just E, G, S, and the last one? Not even sure there was a fail option.
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Before I went to my high school, it had a system where it was all pass-fail. You had to complete so many units to graduate. This died when parents noticed that it impeded college admissions. The 70s were a very weird time.
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I’m with Jen- I think that giving a kid suggestions on how to raise their grades, rather than how to learn more, is kind of sad.
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My first grader gets rated 1 to 4 on each of the following behaviors in her core academic classes: class participation, effort, follows direction, follows through on assignments, listens carefully, neatness in work, organization, peer relationships, respect for authority, self-control. In PE they get rated 1 to 4 for agility, attitude, effort, encouragement, honesty/fairplay, listening skills, obedience and teamwork. Then they get subject grades on top of the behavior grades: E for Exemplary, S+ for Commendable, S for Satisfactory, N for Needs Improvement, and U for Unsatisfactory. I expect they’ll switch over to A-B-C-D-F later on.
I wonder how long the A-B-C-D-F scale reigned supreme. Years ago, I read a very funny book called “Never Tease a Dinosaur” from 1962 by a male elementary school teacher. As I recall, A-B-C-D-F was newfangled in the eyes of many of his kids’ parents, and they would often demand to know what the grades meant “in numbers.” Apparently, they were used to grades on a 100 point scale.
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Oh, yeah, it’s totally sad. But I’m not really concerned with Jonah’s learning. I think he’s learning a lot. He loves reading now. He does great in math if he doesn’t go too fast and make careless errors. He just devoured a book on sharks. I’m not messing with any of that. We’re just tinkering around the edges. I’m showing him how to improve a grade. And the sad reality is that little things, like appearing to be attentive, count.
Maybe those aren’t little things though. A big part of the KIPP program, the inner city charter school system, is helping students with just that. They are taught to sit upright and look the teacher in the eye.
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Gladwell talks about teaching kids “entitlement.”
Am still on the fence about that.
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Wow, all you guys getting actual grades. We get C, P, ?, and X. I’m not even sure what they actually stand for. X is not applicable. I think C means “consistently”, and P means “practicing”. The question mark is for something below P, which I haven’t seen, so am unsure about what it stands for. I am pretty much in the dark about how my kid is doing in school (though, as Laura says, I know that she’s doing well), just not any sense of what “well” means.
The school did do standardized testing, and I’m hoping there’s no surprises htere.
I think Laura’s just telling Jonah how the world works, not really “coaching” him on how to get better grades in elementary school. Might not work for some kids, but might work for others. You (and the kid) have to decide how important fart jokes are to you — are you going to defend them as a matter of principle, and pay the cost, or give them up?
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“Watergate: It’s not really about water.” I said, you know, that’s funny, but sadly teachers don’t appreciate humor, especially on the title slide”
See, really, they don’t? I don’t have this kind of kid, exactly. But, if I did, I’d have a really tough time telling them to get rid of that joke. Isn’t it funny? It’s not offensive. And, if he went on to really describe the event, then, why is the joke bad? I think that by making the joke, you set yourself up for having to do a great job on the rest, but I respect the kid who does both (the joke & the bang-up job).
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Nobody gives up fart jokes. It’s just a matter of learning to mix things up a bit.
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I’m showing him how to improve a grade. And the sad reality is that little things, like appearing to be attentive, count.
But why do you or he care what grades he gets in elementary school if you think he’s learning just fine?
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I don’t care so much that it keeps me up at night. I care slightly. He’s going to need certain skills when he goes into middle school next year. (Middle school starts in 5th grade here. Ugh.) If he does well in math this year, they’ll put him in the honors class. He’s capable of doing the work, but his answers are so sloppy, that sometimes the teacher marks his answers wrong just because she can’t read his handwriting.
Grades matter at this point, because it determines class placement for the next year. It also matters, because it improves his self-esteem. I want Jonah to think of himself as the “smart kid” not the “kid who will say whatever random thing that enters his brain” (that’s his current reputation). It also matters, because he can trade in all his Es for points at the local video game store, which can add up to free wii games.
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Interesting — I’m seeing a gender issue here. Both the Laura’s are trying to mitigate the non-conformity of their boys, while I’m worried that my girl will internalize the requirements of teaches, society, and even me, to the point where she learns never to say anything that enters her brain, or to make a joke that might affect what people (including teachers) think of her.
Of course, it’s not just gender; it’s personality, too, but I worry about my girl learning to be a “good girl” and want her to learn that she can be loved even if she’s a smart alec.
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“He’s capable of doing the work, but his answers are so sloppy, that sometimes the teacher marks his answers wrong just because she can’t read his handwriting.”
So handwriting does matter a lot, even in 2009.
By the way, I was talking to my sister about handwriting, and our impression is that it has become mainstream in American schools to not teach letter formation. If a child is having trouble forming letters, it may be because they have never been taught.
“Interesting — I’m seeing a gender issue here. Both the Laura’s are trying to mitigate the non-conformity of their boys, while I’m worried that my girl will internalize the requirements of teaches, society, and even me, to the point where she learns never to say anything that enters her brain, or to make a joke that might affect what people (including teachers) think of her.”
I think there is absolutely no risk of my daughter becoming a conformist. Conformity is one of the major skills that I’d like her to pick up over the next year.
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“that it has become mainstream in American schools to not teach letter formation”
Not in my world, either in my son’s preschool, nor my daughter’s elementary. All the kids in my daughter’s elementary school have better handwriting than I do, even the boys.
And, in my son’s preschool, they teach them to trace letters. My son has internalized this so that he will ask us to draw dots for relatively long sentences so that he can trace them to fill in the words.
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Yeah, Amy, I’m with bj. Both my kids learned letter formation here in Massachusetts. My son has *exquisite* handwriting at the age of 6. My daughter’s progressively got worse from 1st to 4th grade. But that’s her print/non-cursive writing. Her cursive is pretty good.
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Our elementary school grades are 1, 2, 3,4. I believe the 4 is highest. But I honestly don’t remember.
Both my 3rd grader and my kindergartner are starting to have better handwriting than I do – they spend a lot of time on handwriting for some reason.
We get our first report card next week. I’ll have to sort out whether the 4s are good or bad by then!
And I liked the Watergate joke. I would have smiled at that one…
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I was forced to take mechanical drawing in 10th grade. The biggest life benefit? Intensive instruction in letter formation. I can make block caps to beat the band.
About student names: I always end up with a gaggle of medium-height, medium-zaftig, dark-haired women that I can’t tell apart from each other. When I’m lucky, they sit in a tight enough group that I can call out in that general direction and hit close enough. And, in the back row, the tall guys with short hair and no glasses…
This semester I’ll have, uh, 95 students, and be in my third trimester — which works havoc on certain kinds of look-up-tables in my brain. Uh oh.
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I suspect that well before your career is winds up, Laura, it will be perfectly normal for students to text their lecturers, whether with traditional punctuation or without, and that lecturers who aren’t comfortable with that will seem like dinosaurs. Technology, the rising cost of higher education, the view of students as consumers HE as a (pretty damned expensive) service, and the massification of HE all point in this direction.
Perhaps the title of professor will practically disappear (except among academics themselves), to be replaced by something on the order of “Yo, dude”. More realistically, the title will remain, but what it signifies to students in terms of what they can ask of their lecturers (and how they can ask it) may well be unrecognizable (or at least intolerable) to people who entered the profession a generation or so ago.
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I think that “playing the game of school/grades” can totally legitimately be taught as a distinct skill set. I don’t even think it’s that sad; in my professional life there are lots of soft skills that help one get promoted apart from the actual work. Instruction on these finer points of group interaction can be really helpful.
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