Celebrating Children as Works in Progress
When my oldest child started middle school, it was only a matter of weeks before a new kind of awareness of grades set in, along with a new kind of anxiety about measuring up. I remember well the competitive curiosity of my school days and the relentless refrain of “What did you get?” after every test and paper and the complex negotiations around asking, answering, and not answering that question.
But when my child asked how I did when I was in middle school, I really couldn’t remember much. Since then, we’ve had an ongoing series of conversations about expectations, pressures, and competition. I’ve thought a lot about the institutional and cultural factors that shape those expectations and pressures. And, recently, I found a way to answer her question about my own middle school experience.
There are many cultural factors, large and small, which shape our, and our children’s, sense of excellence and achievement. The Race to Nowhere has documented the fierce landscape our children learn in, and news stories regularly report on the economic insecurity that fuels that increasingly competitive race. But it is the local, institutional factors that are most salient for our kids.
These include Honor Rolls, Achievement Awards, and levels. Honor Rolls are traditional and effective ways of setting the bar for kids, and working to achieve, or maintain, Honor or High Honor status can help kids focus their efforts. I’m less sure about the Achievement Awards. By recognizing the top two grade earners in every section of every subject, they cast a wide net, and that’s good. But since some very high achievers inevitably lose out to peers with grades just a point or two higher, it fuels a sometimes unhealthy competition, encourages perfectionism, and leaves some feeling that great isn’t really good enough.
Happily, we are moving away from levels at our middle schools. But my child knows well that this year’s math grade determines next year’s math placement, and even my strong student worries (unnecessarily) that a bad showing on this year’s NJASK tests could affect placement in next year’s eighth grade.
I try to assuage my child’s fears and remind her that she’s a “work in progress.” I am told that I “just don’t understand.” And maybe I don’t. I don’t spend my days in those classrooms, halls, and auditoriums, and I can’t really remember what it was like for me. But a year or two ago, my mother cleaned out her apartment in preparation for a move, and she gave me a box. I took a quick look and found elementary school artwork, old class photos, and some report cards. Then I put the box in the attic. Recently, trying to understand and remember what it’s like to be a seventh grader, I went and got it and shared it with my kids.
In seventh grade I was in a new school. Some kinds of work (lab reports, essays) were unfamiliar to me. I got mostly B’s, a few A’s and I did make the Honor Roll, which was noted on the report card, but not otherwise recognized or celebrated. What is most striking is the unevenness of my efforts and attention from class to class and trimester to trimester. New subjects and good (though not necessarily favorite) teachers inspired my best work.
My weaknesses included: lack of general organization, sloppy homework, failure to read directions, weak spelling, punctuation and organization in writing, careless errors in math, talking too much in class, not talking enough in class, and sometimes goofing off in class. In short, I was a seventh grader. I had strengths too, and they were also noted. I was generally liked and encouraged. Opportunities stayed open for me.
I see this most powerfully in my math education. In high school, I was a math geek. I was an A student, and took two years of AP calculus as well as AP Physics. In seventh grade math my motivation was noted, but I had a B- average, and my exams were C’s. I am lucky that these grades did not disqualify me from the advanced math track I followed.
I want my children, and all our children, to feel liked and encouraged in school, and to know that opportunities are open for them. And I don’t want to take anything away from our high achievers. I have been a proud parent in the auditorium for awards ceremonies. I know the sweet feeling of watching my “work in progress” shine in the spotlight for a moment. But at the same time, I see my inconsistent seventh grade self in the shadows, and I remember that every child is a work in progress, and some, indeed, are unfinished masterpieces. We need to continue to build school and community cultures that give them room and time to grow, honor their inconsistencies, and celebrate them all.
E Rohan
8:23 am on Thursday, April 26, 2012
Exceptionally bright students NEED challenge, just as much as struggling students need assistance. The problem with people's aversions to testing and levels is that it sees any kind of additional challenge given to these students as being discriminatory and unfair. And that is unfair to those children who just want to learn as opposed to slowly going over material that they mastered a long time ago. The district is required by NJ law to identify gifted children in grades K-12. Our neighboring districts, including West Orange, Millburn and Livingston, all have G&T programs. Our district has not complied with the law, and there is nothing that is equitable or excellent about that.
Kalani Thielen
11:46 am on Thursday, April 26, 2012
Ms. Burch,
I completely agree with everything you've said here. The fierce competitiveness that you identify (for achievement awards or otherwise) can interfere with learning in many ways. Children focus their interests on different subjects at different times, and those paths don't always converge exactly with pre-set testing/evaluation schedules. We shouldn't be quick to close the door on opportunities for any child.
Although you don't say it explicitly, what you've described here is IMHO a positive constructive philosophy to justify deleveling. Unlike some of the nastier turns that this whole conversation has taken in the last year or two, this one that you've articulated here is one that I can get behind wholeheartedly.
On the subject of G&T programs (which you don't address, but which E Rohan brought up), I was in one as a kid and I personally found it to be unfair in a lot of ways. My biggest concern with the program that I was in was that it was kind of like a general "enhanced education" in all subjects, even though I may have only been ahead of my peers in one or two subjects (and even there, only at the time that the initial test was given).
Amy Higer
3:21 pm on Thursday, April 26, 2012
"The problem with people's aversions to testing and levels is that it sees any kind of additional challenge given to these students as being discriminatory and unfair."
I don't think this accurately describes the aversion people have to levels and testing. Every child needs to be challenged: exceptionally advanced students, as well as struggling ones. It's not a zero-sum game. De-leveling in and of itself is not a panacea for educational excellence or educational equity. What it does do is recognize that all children, including talented ones, are works in progress, as Ms. Burch says.
Mr. Thielen states the "gifted and talented" problem well: not every child is gifted or talented in the same way. We need, as a community, to figure out why some children, including the 3-4% that are academically gifted, are being challenged in school, and some are not. We need also to take a look at how other districts systematically address the needs of academically advanced students, just as we ought to look at how they address the needs of their struggling students. Our old leveling system certainly did not work well for either of these groups of children.
E Rohan
3:53 pm on Thursday, April 26, 2012
"Our old leveling system certainly did not work well for either of these groups of children." You're entitled to your opinion, but it's just that, an opinion, not a fact. Many people in the community did not supported the wholesale elimination of levels in the middle school and I believe the Board of Ed election results (while not entirely about that) reflected that.
Amy Higer
4:35 pm on Thursday, April 26, 2012
Unless I'm missing something, your point was about the lack of a "gifted and talented" program in our district. The level system, among it's many problems, including the ones Ms. Burch describes, did not offer a "G and T" program. ( Unless the 40 percent in Level 4 were all gifted?) Even supporters of leveling like yourself should have been disturbed by this? And, yes, for the record, such as it is, this is just my opinion.
Kalani Thielen
4:36 pm on Thursday, April 26, 2012
E Rohan: I'm not sure that's true. I voted for the PEB slate and took them at their word that they don't want to dismantle the deleveling decisions that have already been made. Call me shortsighted, but I was most persuaded to jump on board because of the curriculum adjustments that they proposed -- specifically the promise to focus on Computer Science.
I'm mostly agnostic on deleveling, but I think that it could theoretically work for the same reasons that Ms. Burch has outlined here (or in the 'Khan Academy' TED talk, where a somewhat more detailed technical approach to "deleveling" is roughly outlined).
In any case, and Ms. Burch I apologize for your post turning into yet another referendum on deleveling, it seems to me that this question has already been settled and a decision has been made. As it concerns the future direction of our schools, we really should be focused on how to make a deleveled classroom as effective as possible for every student.
JMHO.
E Rohan
4:47 pm on Thursday, April 26, 2012
Kalani, I agree with you. There were many good reasons to vote for those candidates besides that one issue. That's why I said the election not entirely about that.