Hide the report card (#5)

What's the importance of grades? I mean, you could definitely argue that grading was created by teachers to make a social empire of students that will soon dominate the world with their intelligence; or you could say that grading is used to evaluate what their students are learning. Call it what you want.

In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me a piece of advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.* Essentially, through a college professor-worthy lecture, my dad said that having the highest grades in my class should not be my goal, though incidentally that happened, rather progressing as a student over time. Cheesy, yes. But there's a lot of stock to that. You can't contol external factors; that inevitable duel with the new kid that ends up getting a better test grade than you. But you can control your self-growth.

I'll be honest. My first year of school was eye-opening. I won't bore you with my life's story, but basically I was the snarky, self-assured smart kid that stole the cheese off of kids' pizzas. Odd, yes. Unfortunately, I had a C in conduct/behavior and A's in all my other subjects. My parents were concerned with this, but after my teacher explained that stealing the cheese off of other kids' pizzas at my age was totally normal, they settled. In other words, my C in conduct was average. This is traditional grading; those report cards you take home with you that are splattered with 100s and 95s. There's nothing wrong with this way of grading, in my eyes. It's straightforward, simple enough, and it's what we've been using for a while. We associate these grades with different levels of knowledge and understanding. 98% on your spelling test? Sorry, that's not refrigerator-material, Johnny.

Look, we've developed this grand new grading system known as standards-based grading, coming to a school near you. What's this standards-based grading, you ask? Let me elaborate: it's an in-depth representation of what a kid knows. Instead of using letters and numbers to represent your understanding of a certain subject; the grades are partially proficient, proficient, and advanced proficient. Each grade is pretty self-explanatory and yet gives us a better look at what little Johnny is learning in school. He's partially proficient in spelling? Time to whip out the flash cards. It gives us more ground to build off of and you can really get a grasp for what areas you're strong in and the ones that need help.

Personally, I'm a fan of the standards-based grading. It's what my old school used to assess us last year and it was incredibly effective. For instance, if I was excellent at relaying current events through essays yet I was partially proficient when it came to world geography, I knew what to study. Snazzy, right? It's easy to see your growth in subjects over time through this method of grading.

'Tis all for now, readers. In between this blog post and the next time I grace the internet with my presence, enjoy this nifty little video.
Rock on, guys.

--Internet Superhero



*Gatsby references, folks. I'm just that cool.

A General Lack of Creativity (#4)

Lately in Rogate, we've been talking about all this creativity stuffs. What exactly is creativity? Researchers claim it is the ability to first use divergent thinking to generate unique ideas and then employing convergent thinking to execute these ideas in a practical way. You're looking a bit shocked that I haven't mentioned writing moody soliloquies deep into the night or painting your heart out. These are misconceptions about creativity; that it's exclusive to the arts. The idea is that we should incorporate this kind of thinking into our core classes instead of excluding it to art class only.

Researchers are noticing a steady decline in creativity scores in the U.S., while our IQ scores are rising. There's this interesting phrase that I think applies to this; be a writer, not a typer. The thing about our current education style in the U.S. is that we're trained to memorize facts and we're given very little freedom to actually bounce around with ideas. In other words, we're typers, never really coming up with new ideas; merely repeating what we've been taught. And, in all honesty, spitting back memorized information doesn't take too much brain power. For instance, in my English class, I was asked to write a "silly story" that incorporated vocabulary words we've been studying. At first glance, I thought this would be pretty neat, but then I realized that the plot was already written out for me. Needless to say, I furiously deviated from the pre-written plot and wrote a rap for the story instead. Not expecting an A on that one.

In China, their education is progressing in accordance with their social progress. They are no longer using the "drill-and-kill" teaching style. Instead, they're using problem-based education. This challenges the students to think in innovative ways to solve real-life problems. Because I'm all for progressiveness in life, the idea of problem-based education is appealing to me. All the while, as I'm reading this information I can't help but feel angry-truly, deeply frustrated. Why are we going back to antiquated teaching methods that are only doing us a diservice? You really think that hitting us over the head with textbooks will push our math and science scores forward? Giant squid of anger, here.

With my dad in the Air Force, I've been to six schools so far. Not to say I'm some sort of education connoisseur or anything, but I kind of am. The most interesting school I went to was one in, get this, Texas. While I hated the state of Texas itself, the particular school I went to was an open floor plan school. There were no doors, no constricting hallways, and the gifted program I was in was stellar. All this created for an open-minded atmosphere and I really enjoyed my four-month stay there. The last school I was at was less fortunate. They offered four electives, there was no gifted program for middle school students, and it was an incredibly small school. Through all of this, I've seen the schools that need updating and the ones that are pulsating with inventive and creative thinkers. I've been lucky enough to have my own views and ideas encouraged and supported by my teachers.

In my gifted program in fourth through sixth grade, I was in a literature circle where I was to read novels and create ads marketing the books I'd read. Not only did this get me interested in marketing, it opened me to the world of filmmaking. In fifth grade, my teacher, the zany Mrs. Jaeger, challenged me to take a problem in life, come up with a solution for it, and market it at a convention called Marketplace for Kids. I also enrolled in this fantastic program called Starbase, where we studied STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). We built our own robots, designed race cars, and presented our projects to judges. Incidentally, my team won nationals for both of these projects. Coincidence? I think not.

My best friend recently moved to Louisiana, which doesn't have a reputation for great schools. She's a freshman in high school and she's not only limited to a few electives to choose from, but her core classes are sub-par. Kind of sucks to know that you're not being given exploratory classes but that you're also getting a crappy education. It's unfortunate that these students are not being given a great foundation for exploring their creativity and skills.

I don't think creativity is lost altogether. I think it's a matter of infusing it back into schools and cultivating creative thinking.
--Internet Superhero