Grades Do Not Equal Education
by There are several faulty underlying assumptions in an education poll I took online a few years ago. The most important of those faulty assumptions claimed that grades are a necessary and accurate measure of a child’s abilities and achievements. I discovered that my children learned best using natural learning, which is a form of unschooling. Unschooling is child selected learning. The child chooses where, what, when, with whom, and how much to learn instead of following a packaged curriculum.
Children enter the world already wired to accept and process new experiences and information. This begins at birth with a sensory exploration of the world immediately surrounding the infant. Could anyone imagine grading an infant on nursing speed, grasping ability, or evacuation rates? Of course not!
The child next learns that certain actions have certain results. The child cries and gets fed, clothed, and cuddled. Soon the child makes “questioning” sounds before crying. These sounds evolve into babbling. Should we grade communication skills in our infant? Of course not!
But we DO encourage the use of these skills by repeating things to the infant using both “baby talk” and correct speech. This constant interplay between parent and child leads to the development of the concept of “words.” These speech parts have meanings associated with a particular cause and effect. The infant says “Mama” or “Dada” and gets scooped up and cuddled. The infant learns to say “baba” and gets a bottle.
Eventually, the infant develops a concept of separateness. The concept “mine” begins to show up in the child’s speech. The concept “no” also develops. Do we grade this? Of course not.
Why then do we feel a grade is needed or even appropriate for older children? Because we are conditioned by school systems — whose primary purpose is to pigeonhole children into homogeneous groups — to believe this is needed. The purpose of education ought to be to increase knowledge and understanding of the world around us. There is no one point at which this learning is complete, because the world is constantly changing.
If we wish to have an appropriately educated populace, we need to move away from a concept of grade assignments and back to a concept of “showing what you know.” Situational tests — where someone is given a task to accomplish — are a much better measure of a person’s abilities. Portfolios are far superior to paper and pencil tests as a record of achievements. Assessment should be for determining whether or not a particular concept has been learned, not to assign a grade. If the concept has been learned, proceed to mastery of the next concept. If it has not, reteach the concept using a different method and adjust the lessons to accommodate the child’s preferred learning style.
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Post Commentlovinglyoursjuny
On December 15, 2011 at 1:23 am
Good observation.
Yah, we cannot measure every kid’s learning and graded it literally.
AmosTheCat
On December 15, 2011 at 3:38 am
Each of my two daughters began her education in a Montessori school. They transferred into public schools when they had to. Both got terrific educations. One was accepted into nine excellent colleges including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Wellesley. She graduated from Wellesley in three years. Maybe these academic successes would have come with a totally public, traditional education. There is no way to tell. But, I totally agree with your philosophy, Meg.
megamatt09
On December 15, 2011 at 9:56 am
Indeed grades can be deceiving.
amit13
On December 16, 2011 at 2:19 am
So right, grades can say only about intelligence but what about wisdom, something that is needed more than intelligence
Socorro Lawas
On December 16, 2011 at 3:42 am
Grades are only clues to some amount of learning.
PHILLY DREAMER
On January 4, 2012 at 3:22 pm
I like this approach, because in life it doesnt matter if you got an A or a D in english, the only thing that matters is you know how to talk.
momofplenty
On April 19, 2012 at 7:14 am
I agree … and… better grades do not mean better pay. the value of a grade is worthless. grades only hold within the school system, once we are ou of that symstem, life is about problem solving and conceptualizing.