Being a homeschooler, I've had to wrestle with the nature and purpose of education. One does not simply pick up a grade-level-appropriate textbook and start teaching. There's more to it than that. You need to find your own philosophy of education, the whys and the hows, before picking curricula and choosing your teaching methods.
I've always been a bit of a purist when it comes to home education. I subscribe to the ideology that learning is its own reward. I didn't believe in testing, because, with the rare exception of obtaining licenses and qualifications, testing hardly ever applies in real life. (After graduate school, I have not taken another exam.) We don't educate ourselves in order to be evaluated; we educate in order to be better human beings.
That's the idealistic part of me speaking. Now I will get off the soapbox and share my dilemma. Now that my teen has been through a year of private, brick-and-mortar school (there's an acronym for that, apparently, but I forget), and entering into a virtual high school, which, but for the flexibility of time and place, operates in the same way as a regular school, with its regular evaluations and feedback, frequent quizzes and homework, and, as one would expect, plenty of logistics and paperwork (be it virtual or not), I am having to decide how much to push my teen to work towards good grades.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those tiger moms who demand straight A's regardless of my son's abilities and other priorities. I want him to be well-rounded as much as his inclinations would allow, and I make allowances for his strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, I realize that, not having been evaluated often in the first eight or nine years of his academic career (and when evaluated, always with the leniency of an understanding parent), my son does not care much for good grades. His philosophy is, As long as I've learned the material, what does it matter what grades I get? A hidden part of me agrees. But no! I can't, and I shouldn't, because that's not how our academic institutions work!
Many would say that striving for A's is equivalent to striving for excellence. One must push oneself to perform better. I have my qualms about that, because getting A's on tests is not the same as doing excellent work. I should know that, because I was a good test-taker. Still, how does one evaluate excellence? Can one learn better by pushing for better grades? Or does one just become more diligent in preparing before a test and more meticulous about answering questions? Does one simply become more adept with short-term memory, or does one truly learn the concept for good?
I grew up being familiar with the "excellence" game. My dad gave me a dollar (in Taiwanese currency) for every perfect score I got on a test; there were further bonuses for finals and semester grades. Going to school meant earning my rewards and watching my savings grow. By the time I was in high school, the habit of getting a perfect score on a test or an assignment was ingrained in me. There was no getting away from that overachieving mentality. Although that drive never left me and had taken me through higher education with rewarding results, I can't help but feel that my "excellent" education was not so excellent after all. Something was missing. I left school and, for years, never touched another book again.
Ever since then, I've been plagued by these questions. What does it mean to be educated? How can it be accomplished? Can one really be coerced into getting a better education? How do material incentives factor into the equation? I have seen for a fact that incentives such as financial rewards and privileges are highly effective at motivating kids to aim for better grades. And I am tempted to give in. Still, the question remains: what does the incentive system tell our students about education? Will it push them toward that carrot only as long as they want that carrot or if that carrot remains? What happens when the carrot goes away, which invariably does?
What do you think about performance evaluations, grading, and incentives for better grades? Do you find it challenging to motivate your children? I'd love to hear your views.
8 comments:
I think you would like the movie "The Cartel". It takes on the New Jersey Public School system. One of the programs they tried was monetary incentives...very interesting.
Wow. Great thoughts here. I started out not wanting to test my kids. I never gave grades until High School. However, my hubby insisted we test every other year and I can't tell you what the did to my confidence.
Grades are important in high school if you want to go to college. Ask your son what his goals are post-high school. If he's going to college, he needs to try to get good grades AS he is learning.
The only college I know that doesn't give grades is Evergreen in OR. I never gave rewards for good grades, but my kids seemed to want to get them anyway. I know the Lord will lead you in this, as you seek him.
Stephanie, I've never heard of that movie. Thanks for pointing me to it. It sounds really interesting.
Helen, thanks for sharing your experiences. It's so encouraging and helpful to hear from someone who's a few years ahead. For some reason, my son wasn't able to grasp the connection between a good university with GPAs at a practical level. However, he was very capable of grasping the connection between GPAs and Facebook ban. Perhaps it has to do with maturity--the ability to appreciate longer-term rewards instead of short-term gratification. Yes, everyday gives a new opportunity to trust in God; every new stage presents new reasons to seek God's guidance.
yep! FB ban for a week and all of a sudden he became a straight A student in the K-12 course. Utterly amazing!
I know zilch about homeschooling, but I do know that I have a highly-developed short-term memory, yet can recall only a paltry amount of what I "learned" in school prior to college. On the other hand, exams of some type seem necessary to motivate us to properly digest and store information. A difficult dilemma indeed.
Adf, I agree. It seems that those of us who managed to master the straight-A's game in school have highly sharpened short-term memory. I'm not sure if one is the cause of the other, or vice versa. However, I cannot equate that with learning.
atm, i'm thinking more in terms of what a future college or potential employer might like to see.
i think in the uk we hear a problem of schools turning out thousands of kids, all with A*A*A* grades, but with zero world experience and not much personality.
each year we have a story of the brilliant kid turned down at oxford, and i think, that's probably because oxford is looking for someone with whoomph rather than someone who sits in the interview and says 'tell me what you want me to say and i'll say it back to you'.
so i have an eye to grade c or above in the exams they take, but beyond that, i want my kids to have whoomph. i want them to have impact, and for that i want them to live generously in the world and grow up with a wide range of experience so they can develop many ideas, many opinions and argue from many points of view. i'd hope a college or employer values that more than someone who acts like a robot.
in the end i guess it will come down here to each child/ each discipline. if i thought they could get an A then of course i'd push them for it, but if i thought they'll basically be lucky to get a C, then what is the point of pushing them to the point where my growing kids hate the subject, the approach, all home ed, and me!?
Grit,
I like how you put it--the "whoomph". And I agree with what you say, one hundred per cent. After all, that's why I chose home education in the first place. However, the insecurity does creep in from time to time because university admission officers (at least the ones in the US) don't care how much whoomph a child has if his GPA is not up to their standards. It's a fine line we homeschoolers walk, when we choose to leave the system with all its rules and then try to get back in having recognized how silly those rules are.
Post a Comment