The other day I was trying to get our coat closet tidied up before the end of the day. "O.K. I'm giving out sector grades for neatness...coat closet Sector 1 gets a, let's see, A+, A, A-, B+, B..." I went down a grade for every item I picked up.
The Elms sprinted to the coat closet. In no time flat, the shoes were lined up, the mouldering lunches were thrown out, the label-less mittens claimed. "What grade did we get? What grade did we get?" they chorused.
I was taken aback. Perhaps I shouldn't have been. I had meant it tongue-in-cheek, and the Elms' response was tongue-in-cheek...mostly. But boy, did they hop to it. That silly little carrot was a prize they wanted.
The letter grade is such a powerful image in our society. I've had prospective kindergarten parents ask me how they'll know how their child is doing if we don't get grades at our school. And yet, a grade says so very, very little. Not only is it not a nuanced measure of a child, it's also an arbitrary goal, one subject to the whims and imperfection of the instructor.
We spend a lot of time and energy helping students develop an internal sense of their strengths and opportunities. We help them experience the joys and rewards of doing your best work because it is your best work. We look for chances for students to do work which makes an authentic impact -- teaching others, providing service, even changing one's understanding of the world.
And then they leave us. Many Elms alumni have told me about their "A"s in middle school (indeed, many, many Prairie Creekers are on the honor roll). I congratulate them and ask if they were challenged. There's sometimes an awkward pause..."no." My only hope is that deep down they still know when they are learning and when they're not; that deep down they feel excited when they are challenged and empty when they're not.
I can only hope that in six or ten years, when the grades stop and they have to look internally for the motivation to have a great life -- they'll be able to find it. As we say in the Elms, always do the right thing, even when no one is looking.
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