Students' Grades

My friend Sandy (not her real name) called me this weekend because she was upset about her sixth grade son Noah’s (also not his real name) mid term grade in social studies. Last term, Noah’s social studies grade was 87%. Now, only 6 weeks later his grade is 68%. Noah is upset by his grade, and Sandy was confused by it. When Sandy asked Noah why he thought his grade had gone down in social studies, he said, “I have no idea, I have been working just as hard and learning a lot. I’ve really learned a lot about Japan.” (Japan is what he is currently studying in social studies.)

If you have read this blog before, you know that for me learning is all about students’ understanding of important concepts. I asked Sandy if she had noticed any change in Noah’s understanding of the concepts they were studying in social studies. Sandy thought that Noah understood the concepts well. In the last month or so, there were many times when Noah talked about Japan in relation to something he was doing. For example, when at a Japanese restaurant, Noah wondered aloud if the restaurant was run by the Japanese work place philosophy. Noah explained this philosophy and tried to find evidence by looking at how the workers interacted at the restaurant. When the family was talking about what would make a good president, Noah explained how the ancient Japanese believed that their rulers were direct descendants of the Gods and how these rulers had great power because of this belief. He also talked about the current Japanese government’s charitable works and how these works compared to those of the US government. Sandy was able to relate other stories which show that Noah has a good understanding of many important concepts about Japan.

It gave Sandy some relief to realize that Noah was indeed learning. Still, Noah was upset that his grade was low and Sandy was perplexed with how to talk with him about his low grade. Noah’s school has an on-line grade book that parents have access to. Sandy and I took a closer look at Noah’s specific grades. There were 8 grades that factored into Noah’s mid-term grade. All of these grades came from low-level cognitive tasks. For example, there was a test on Japan where all of the questions relied purely on memory. (E.g. The highest elevation in Japan is _______.) Noah couldn’t remember some of the answers and also missed some points because he spelled some words wrong and forgot to capitalize some proper nouns.

The tasks that made up Noah’s 87% grade from last semester were a mix of high-level and low-level cognitive tasks. One of the high-level tasks was a research project on The Great Wall of China. Noah researched, wrote a paper, made a poster and presented his work to the class. Noah got an A on this project. Last term, his grades on the low-level cognitive tasks tended to be lower than his grades on the high-level cognitive tasks.

So, how is Noah doing in social studies? He seems to be learning what we would want students to learn about social studies. He can research a topic, write about it and present his ideas to his peers. He can make relationships between another culture and his own. His teacher is clearly doing a great job of exposing her students to important social studies concepts and Noah is clearly doing his part by engaging in these concepts in a way that leads to understanding. Not all social studies teachers teach in a manner that fosters the level of understanding that Noah has. As someone who cares about Noah, I am grateful for what he has been able to learn.

What about Noah’s low marks on the low-cognitive level tasks? For example, what about the fact that Noah couldn’t remember and spell correctly all four of the major islands of Japan? I would guess that most educated, economically successful, well adjusted adults don’t know the names of the four major islands of Japan. I would also guess that these adults could find the names of these islands in less than 30 seconds if they had access to the Internet. It doesn’t distress me that Noah didn’t get these answers right on the test.

It does however distress me that Noah is getting a D in social studies. One might think that a D as a mid-term grade in sixth grade wouldn’t have much impact on Noah. No college or scholarship agency is ever going to see this grade. Noah however sees this grade. As adults we might be able to take the perspective that this D isn’t a reflection of his understanding. Most middle and high school kids just don’t have the reasoning skills or the maturity to take this same perspective. It would take an unusual adolescent to receive a D and draw the conclusion, “well, actually I am strong a social studies, it is just that I don’t memorize things well.”

This grade has the potential of sending some pretty harmful messages to Noah. One message that this grade might convey is that Noah isn’t good at social studies. Part of the reason that Noah was able to learn so much about Japan was that he engaged in his social studies class and readings. I wonder if Noah would continue to be as engaged if he continues to receive D’s in social studies. Another, equally harmful, message that Noah could take from this D is that the only things that are important to learn in social studies are things that can be assessed by low-level, fact recall tests. Most kids can learn better study skills, spend more time memorizing facts and eventually figure out how to get better grades on low-level tasks. It would be a shame if Noah, in an effort to improve his grade, paid less attention to important social studies concepts so that he could spend more time memorizing facts. Learning time is too precious to spend much of it memorizing information.

What can we, as teachers, learn from Noah’s midterm grade? As teachers we need to be careful that our assessments and grades reflect what we view as important learning. Kids and parents believe that grades are reflections of how well students have mastered concepts and skills that we value. We can’t really fully embrace learning with understanding if our assessments aren’t aligned with learning with understanding. Something is clearly wrong if kids who understand can do poorly on our assessments or kids who don’t understand can do well on them. I have worked with many ninth grade students who got mostly A’s in middle school math and struggled in Algebra 1. These students don’t struggle with the new content that appears in Algebra 1 but rather struggled with the mathematics they should have learned in middle school. These students and their parents were not getting the information they needed to get from their middle school grades.

As I said earlier, I am distressed about Noah’s grade and I really hope that Noah is able to maintain a positive concept of himself as a learner and hold on to productive beliefs regarding the type of learning that is important. I am distressed about Noah but I am doubly distressed about students like Noah who don’t have parents like Sandy. Sandy is highly educated and has many supports in her life. Not all parents will be able to provide support to Noah as Sandy will.

I strongly encourage you to open your grade book and look at what your grades are based on. If your grades aren’t based on what you think is important, try to figure out what changes you can make to better align your grades with the learning you value. I challenge you to think of one small thing you can do this week to move your grades one step closer to being reflections of the learning you value.


End Note: Many schools are currently using Standards Based Report Cards. Standards Based Report Cards give students and parents information on the specific concepts each student knows and understands. My own children’s elementary school uses Standards Based Report Cards with great success. It takes a great deal of time, effort, resources and especially teacher professional development to design and use Standards based report cards well. It also takes a good amount of well-designed parent education. Standards Based Reports Cards have great potential for helping teachers and schools move towards teaching for understanding and ensuring that all students learn important skills and concepts.