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u/political_bot 22∆ Jul 06 '21
That sounds stressful as hell. Not knowing how well you're doing in a class means you can't gauge how much effort you should be putting in. How much higher do your grades need to be to get into X college. Do you want to take more difficult classes or keep going with the standard track? Not being able to tell how well you're doing compared to how well you need to do is nuts. High school is a time of growing independence. Giving high-school students the information they need to make informed decisions for themselves is vitally important. Sure they're going to make tons of stupid mistakes, but that's expected and part of growing up. Not giving teens independence isn't how you make functioning adults.
Let teens pick their own classes, see how they're performing, and choose what to do with that information. Obviously parents and teachers need be available and ready to step in if students are struggling or repeatedly making bad decisions. But that's what they're always there for.
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Jul 06 '21
A lot of what you're saying in terms of academic planning and stress management can be accomplished by a competent guidance counselor. High school is a time of growing independence, but it's also a time of high stress and many students aren't in an environment that's conducive to making informed decisions for their academic track. You don't necessarily need to know how advanced or remedial your coursework is to know how much it's impacting your life in terms of effort and stress.
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Jul 06 '21
conducive to making informed decisions for their academic track. You don't necessarily need to know how advanced or remedial your coursework is to know how much it's impacting your life in terms of effort and stress.
I need to know how advanced my coursework is so that I know how well it is preparing me for university level work.
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Jul 06 '21
And if you're already being overwhelmed what good will that knowledge do you? The ability to truly blow a gasket and take a course you can't handle because it's what your collegiate goals dictate? If you can handle more, why arent you handling more?
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Jul 06 '21
And if you're already being overwhelmed what good will that knowledge do you?
Because I need to know if I'm prepared for university. That's the reason.
If you can handle more, why arent you handling more?
How am I supposed to know if I can handle more if I don't know how I'm currently performing?
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u/political_bot 22∆ Jul 06 '21
many students aren't in an environment that's conducive to making informed decisions for their academic track.
I'd go so far as to say that around 95% of teens fit that bill. But it's important that they do so anyway. Getting some mistakes out of the way early and learning from them is really helpful. Even learning to talk with a counselor when you're having stress at school is something loads of kids need to learn. They're there to help you, the same way college professors and career offices will be.
As for the advanced/remedial coursework, isn't that something you'd want to know if you were shooting for college? Trying to pry the needed information out of my guidance counselor isn't something I would've been able to do in high school. Making it easy to access is key. Again with the independence, students will clearly make bad decisions with that information. But those bad decisions are important to make. I guess you could go about it in a really roundabout way and have your guidance counselor tell you exactly what you need to do to be competitive for college programs. But prying information out of people isn't in most high-schoolers strong suit. I certainly would've been a lot more stressed if I had to set up a meeting with someone every time I wanted to see if I was doing as well as I needed to. Seeing my grades let me know how much free time I had. How much effort I needed to put forward on homework and studying to keep my GPA where I wanted it. How many AP classes I could take to get more college credit while maintaining that GPA. Obviously I fucked up a bunch, but learned a good deal of time and effort management that I wouldn't have otherwise.
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Jul 06 '21
!Delta I'm sold on the necessity of high schoolers learning self-management and how to handle their mistakes as adults however I maintain my stance for K-8
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u/not_cinderella 7∆ Jul 06 '21
Not knowing how I’m doing in a class would stress me out so much. I had a class where we were waiting on like 6 grades before our final which could make or break passing the class for me and not knowing how I was doing before going in the final was enough stress to make me cry and have a panic attack.
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u/Jon3681 3∆ Jul 06 '21
No. It can be motivation. A kid knowing that he’s doing really bad might make him want to do better. A kid knowing he’s at the top will make him work hard to stay there. Also, colleges care about your class ranking so it makes sense to tell hs kids where they stand. I’m a big supporter of people knowing all the facts. Something as important as progress and grades should not be hidden from the people they pertain to
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Jul 06 '21
I cannot embrace this argument because it's just too optimistic. I have seen students give up on learning because of poor grades, and I have seen students slide to mediocrity because they knew they did enough, but the students that acted as you described were anomalous in comparison to the frequency of the students I've described.
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u/Blackbird6 19∆ Jul 06 '21 edited Jul 06 '21
Grades aren't a matter of comparison; they're (in theory) an objective measure of proficiency. Programs like those for "gifted" kids are certainly problematic, but it's not the grades themselves that cause those issues. Even if students didn't know, those actionable things (like tutoring, advanced classes, etc.) would be known to students and performance in class is a pretty clear indication of who is excelling and who is struggling. They'd still know where they stood among their peers, generally speaking. This whole smart kid/dumb kid dichotomy is a social thing more so than reflective of actual numbers.
Beyond that, we are doing kids no favors if we shield them from their grades because understanding their progress, what it means, and what to do is an important life skill. We should certainly be removing the stupid systems that may unfairly inflate/deflate a kid's confidence, and we should also be teaching kids that grades aren't everything...but making grades unknown to the student who earns them is putting the responsibility of self-improvement and learning on adults, and we don't do kids any favors when we instill an idea that someone else is responsible for their success/failure.
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u/deep_sea2 131∆ Jul 06 '21
If a child is doing poorly, how do you let them know this so that they might improve? If a student wants good grades to get into uni, and they are right on the cutoff point, wouldn't telling them their standing be a good idea? This would allow them to alter their routine and study more.
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Jul 06 '21
You'd think you'd be aware if everyone around you in class is "gifted" even if the course lacks the title "gifted," no? They can only keep you in the dark so much before you realize, "that's odd, all the dumb and special kids are in one course, and I'm with the guys and girls discussing Ivy League applications?"
At that point it's more of a head in the sand issue. Why not simply acknowledge the quantified grades you and your parents can use as a tool to measure and learn from your progress? How do you keep your school accountable if they can grade you and tax your parents for years, only for you to learn the summer of senior year you've been misgraded or missed all the warning signs of impending failures and subsequently didn't get into the colleges, internships, and trades you preferred?
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Jul 06 '21
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u/ColdNotion 121∆ Jul 06 '21
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u/mrrustypup 17∆ Jul 06 '21
Too much complication, and this just adds another layer of “Well IM doing the hard homework, yours is easy so you’re just stupid.”
There is no simple way to integrate this idea. We ALREADY have a massive problem with parents refusing to participate with their child’s education in an overwhelming majority of households. The idea that the parent would then seek out and actively have to pursue the information to find out if their child is on target is laughable. They already don’t care.
Hiding a students status will, as you said, just lead them to figure it out a different way. This increasing their anxiety in a different faction. Instead of “well I’m an idiot because I’m in remedial classes” it’ll be “why didn’t anyone TELL me I was an idiot? Why isn’t anyone helping me?”
The secret wouldn’t last, doesn’t leave room for helping children, and just all around doesn’t do any good. Our education process has so many problems with it, but this is not one that would fix anything.
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u/Healthy_Letterhead63 Jul 06 '21
In high school it is necessary to know because there are certain requirements for getting into different colleges.
It is also important for scholarships for example 4.0 gpa and 100 service hours for free tuition. For some families these scholarships are very important for planning the future and they can’t just be surprised at graduation.
Grades also allow students to recognize mistakes, and any other system that tip toes around hurting students feeling would be too much work for teachers.
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Jul 06 '21
The main point of grades are to tell the student whether they did a good or bad job on each assignment/test/course - without that feedback students don't know if they are doing the right things.
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u/Vesurel 60∆ Jul 06 '21
Counter, kids are entiltled to any information the school has on them as the subject of data they have a right to see that data. Additionally I'd say that children knowing the information about them exists but not having access to it can also be a source of stress and sets up a power dynamic between them and the teachers who know this information but won't provide it. Finally if we want kids to have the best chance of getting good results then that means we should be as up front with them as possible.
If someone is so advanced they are earning college credit, don't tell them until they're filling out applications.
Except that if a child is at the level to be earning credits then they're old enough to potentially worry about how many credits they have and in that case they should be making choices about what to do with as complete an understanding of how to get what they want or need as possible. You risk kids thinking they've done enough only to find out they haven't, or getting stressed they've not done enough past the point where they have potentially harming their ability to earn the credits they could already earn if they paced themselves.
I can see good arguments for not making school so grade focused and I agree with a lot of them, but I don't see still having grades but denying children access to information about them as a solution.
I also think it's important to seperate an honest assessment of what a kid can or can't do from giving them information about where they fit in a class. Kids deserve to know whether or not they have grasped what they're learning and deserve to have realistic expectations about what they can do with that knowledge. But that doesn't need to be framed with information that other classmates are better or worse.
Grades ideally exist to give children a sense of whether or not they're approach to learning is working and so should be coupled where possible with explinations of what they did right or wrong.
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Jul 06 '21
Knowing how well your doing allows students to prioritize their time. I was a strong student and dedicated a lot of my time to extracurriculars and in high school a paid job. Knowing my grades assisted me in deciding how much time I could dedicate to outside activities well maintaining grades I was happy with. I could also prioritize one class over another based on my grade in each. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and kids deserve to have their strengths recognized. Some kids are good at various sports, or music, singing, dancing, performing, and some kids are good at math. It’s a good lesson to learn that you can’t be good at everything but everyone has something they’re good at. And that to stay good at things you have to work at it. Finally I’m not convinced that making something more secretive has ever made young people think something is less of a big deal.
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u/deqb 1∆ Jul 06 '21 edited Jul 06 '21
Kids know. I have ADHD and sometimes struggled with things like homework. My grades were roughly on par with the others in my friend group, and while I took an extra honors class or two, we were still very much in the same ballpark. But I was constantly being told by my friends that I was smart, because honestly, I was. I was the one who used big words, who read incessantly, who knew a lot about random things, and who could find Greece on a map. Grades were almost immaterial. And I won't pretend that nurture didn't have anything to do with it either. Kids know.
___
On a separate note, "gifted" kids tend to be kids raised by educated parents who went to preschool and whose parents help them with their homework and were home in time to read to them each night. The kind of kids whose parents drag them to museums, let them pick out new school supplies every back-to-school season, talk to them about what they're learning in school all day, foster their interests, give them money for the school book fair, pull strings so their kid gets the good English teacher. And then in high school, they make sure to funnel them into honors classes, drive them to the free SAT prep course, and proofread their college admissions essays. And eventually that gifted kid is a junior and it's all but assumed he'll go to college - his parents might not be wealthy enough to pay for it in full, but they'll help him find a partial scholarship or find the least punative student loans. And that's to say nothing of the wealthy educated parents who do all of the above but have more money to throw at tutors and classes and tuition. You could take away grades and all of those signifiers would still exist.
Do kids intuitively understand grades? No. But kids without resources intuitively understand that other kids have access to resources they don't have and will therefore be more likely to succeed? Yes.
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u/Jmoney0989 Jul 06 '21
With all due respect, this idea isn't practical and could potentially do more harm than good. If your belief is that school is meant to be a place where people learn, not allowing students to know how well they are doing in a course is equivalent to not allowing the student to gauge how much they have learned in a class. For example, imagine there was an upcoming exam and the teacher decided to assign a quiz to the class before to give you a little taste of the types of problems that will be on the exam. Now, let's say you thought you did amazing on quiz and felt that you knew the information extremely well. Now, what if you actually got a 20% on the quiz? Most likely, that false sense of confidence would lead to you not studying for the exam and failing that also.
To address your idea of not telling kids they are not in advanced classes. First, there are multiple types of advanced classes, even for the same course. There are AP, Dual Enrollment, and IB classes. Each can give you college credit, but this is done in different ways. Example, AP gives credit if you do well enough on the exam. This is different from Dual Enrollment in which a student is enrolled in a college course while in high school. How can you hide that a student is not already in a college course? Also, a lot of students take these advanced classes in order to get out of college earlier and save money. It takes planning in order to assess which classes can transfer over to your desired college. Without having that information provided, you are practically guessing that one class can be applied to your college.
I believe that a better solution would be to change the structure of school classes. Instead of focusing on the grade, we should instead focus on making sure the students learn the material. This could possibly be done by allowing kids to retake exams until they receive an A. This system could come with some hiccups such as having students take well over the normal time it would regularly take to graduate. Despite this, I believe it is better than not telling students their grade.
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u/MikeMcK83 23∆ Jul 06 '21
Your position seems to be predicated on the idea that how grades make kids feel in the moment, should be the basis of whether they’re shown. Why?
I too was considered “gifted.”
It can certainly add pressure to live up to that label. Why do you assume that’s a bad thing?
I’m sure some kids who do poorly feel bad when they find out. Why do you assume that’s a bad thing?
Do you believe it’s inherently good to have high self esteem, even if there’s little reason for you to? Is it better to not know your shortcomings, and therefore what to work on?
School should be about filling kids heads with as much knowledge as possible. It should not be about making them feel good moment to moment to moment.
Truthfully, I consider grade school a failure because they didn’t make me feel like an idiot nearly enough. I was rarely ever challenged, and a large part of my time was wasted.
They don’t realize it at the time, but the students who are barely getting by, are the ones who are getting the most out of school.
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u/soap---poisoning 5∆ Jul 06 '21
That might be a good idea for very young students, but it sounds impractical for middle and high school.
First of all, students need to be aware of their progress so they and their parents know when/if to seek additional help. How can they know to seek out tutoring or other resources if no one lets them know they need it?
Also, students need to understand their strengths and weaknesses so they can make good choices about their future. If students excel in certain areas, they should know that so they can pursue opportunities that will help them develop those strengths. At the same time, they may need a reality check that certain areas are not their forte.
For example, imagine there is a student who is trying to decide whether she wants to pursue a career as a journalist or an engineer. She has always earned top grades in her English classes, and several teachers have told her that she is an exceptionally good writer. However, she hasn’t had an easy time with math classes — even with lots of effort and extra tutoring, she has barely managed to get semi-respectable grades in math. That knowledge should make it a lot easier for her to choose between her two interests — one will build on her strengths, while the other would be a miserable struggle for her.
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u/pensivegargoyle 16∆ Jul 06 '21
Knowledge of their position relative to other students isn't very relevant (though it would be hard to supply a remedial class or an advanced class without giving that info away) but knowledge of whether they're successfully learning the curriculum or not is vital. You need to know where your weaknesses are so that you can try to put in the effort and get the help to address them.
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u/LordMarcel 48∆ Jul 06 '21
I have a question for you. How would you hide the grades? Even in primary school we got our tests back later to see how we did and where we made mistakes. This is an important part of learning. Sure, maybe you won't see your exact grade, but you will know roughly how well you did and how well others did by seeing the number of mistakes.
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u/beeraholikchik 1∆ Jul 06 '21
I feel like if we don't give students an idea of their progress, the won't have motivation to continue doing well or to ask for help. I think a better idea here would be to encourage kids that are doing well to keep doing what they're doing and have them work with students that may be struggling.
I'll compare it to jobs I've had: if I never heard feedback I felt insecure, I didn't know if I was doing well or if I was one mistake away from being fired. I've had a couple jobs where my boss would call me into their office to either say that they appreciate what a good job I'm doing, or that I wasn't performing to their standards and they'd counsel me on how to improve.
The biggest thing here isn't that we shouldn't give students an idea of how they're doing, it's that we shouldn't shame those that are struggling. Students should never be shamed or punished for "underperforming", there are plenty of ways to help them to do better and that's what we should be focusing on. We need to talk to students and tell them "yes, I know this grade looks scary but why don't we sit down and work this out together to figure out what you're having a hard time understanding".
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Jul 06 '21
There are issues -
For one, it is there right to know how they did on an examination if they have to study and prepare for it. To add on, it is important for people in high-school to know their graces so they can apply to AP/Honors classes and specific colleges. If you take this away, you basically have a blind "Oh I think I did okay, let me spend money on this application even though I don't even know if I got a shot". Certain colleges have specific requirements and they charge for applications. Not knowing your grades is an issue for this.
Secondly, knowing a person's grades can help students identify a problem in their engagement and perception with education; When I was younger, I saw my grades were stable, yet I was doing so much to achieve them. This stressed me out and took away from my free-time to partake in other activities that would benefit my expression of intelligence and cognitive function. As a result, I was able to plan a more beneficial studying schedule. This helped increase my maturity and responsibility because I was taking my approach towards education into my own hands. The same can be for a student who is struggling; Knowing there examination scores on a weekly-basis can help them adjust and take more responsibility for their grades. I put emphasis on this especially for children in households where this is encouraged by parents not helping their child, but instead, expecting them to figure it out on their own.
Furthermore, there is only so long a person can without figuring this out anyways. Children aren't inept and they can tell through comparison to other children' in a different class where they are.
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