Beyond Grades
We are smarter than having a system that sorts out our children as better or worse on the same scale, when they are each uniquely gifted way beyond any scale.
My fourteen year old daughter leans over my shoulder as I am writing: “ This is really good what you are writing, mom. We can’t all be good at everything - we are good at different things and then we help each other. “
Following a debate the last few weeks in Sweden about school segregation, grades, the curriculum and the increase in diagnosing children who don’t cope in our current system, got me thinking of whether we are asking the right questions about education. In a profound little video clip (recently posted by Will Richardson 🙏, see video below), professor Russell Ackoff speaks of how many of our systems and institutions are pursuing objectives that are different to our intentions.
“There’s a difference between doing things right and doing the right thing”
Are we really doing the right thing that will take us where we want to get with our education systems? What are the underlying assumptions about what a human being is and what we believe ourselves to be capable of?
It is as though we have based our education system on the hypothesis that human beings are innately flawed and need to be controlled and coerced into being good and learning. How about testing the hypothesis that we are innately good with a natural joy of learning?
So back to the grades.
We are smarter than having a system that sorts out our children as better or worse on the same scale, when they are each uniquely gifted way beyond any scale. We need a system that honors this, we can’t afford to waste our most precious resource anymore - the future generations. We owe them to find a way of educating them where each one can bring their unique gift to the world.
The main function of grades is to sort out people. There is also a secondary function which is that grades are a form of external motivation - or really it is a way of controlling students. Grades are a reward and punishment system even if we don’t like to call it that today. For both of those functions, to sort out and to motivate, I believe we can find more effective methods that don’t gamble with the students' sense of self-worth and joy for learning. Grades are a big brick in a system that creates a lot of stress and shortsightedness. And for the students whose gifts and qualities do not fit into what we currently measure, the system is damaging.
There are schools trying other systems like for example Khan Lab School, using mastery based learning. I would love to hear from you if you know of more such initiatives.
I think there are lots of solutions available to us, it is just that teachers are often in survival mode and then it is hard to take in new things. And we have a system that in some ways works against its own intentions. So to take a deep look at how we can create education that empowers every child to thrive in their unique ways, and supports the teachers to do that. The schools we have now do not exist by some law of nature. We created them and we can change them, and at the same time, let’s not wait for the system to change. It is great to be aware of structures and systems that limit us, and yet we always have a choice of how we relate to these systems, and to ourselves, each moment. Whether in or out of any system.
Here are the 10 minutes of wisdom with Russell Ackroff. I totally agree with one of the comments under the youtube clip; it is wild how succinct he is.
