Assignment #4, week 15

Grades or tools for understanding?

My belief is that grading children in primary school leads to increased stress and anxiety for the children. Allowing children to be just that, children, is the greatest gift we can give them. They have all the time in the world to be adults when they become adult, but only one chance to be children. Let’s give them that chance.

In my opinion it’s enough to deal with just to go to school and learn things, grades take the edge off the important thing, learning, and puts the importance into grades, which are a subjective assessment on behalf of the teacher/s. Let the children assess their own development from their own perspective instead as this can lead to a greater understanding about their learning skills and HOW they learn. A grade gives no such indication. It’s only a number or letter on a paper that sais little, if anything about the child’s actual knowledge.

“But children of today need to learn how to cope in the world of today!” Sure, they need to learn that results are of huge value and the fact that high grades might give you a better job than low grades, but can this only be accomplished through early grades? I don’t think so. I am convinced that we can teach the children what they need to know in other ways than with grades. The world has a huge focus on results as it is, and the only way to change that is by starting with our children. We can teach them to value other aspects in life than just those of high grades. We can let children know how the world works by letting them experience the world, and that can be achieved without grades!

I think that it’s more important to give children the right tools on their way towards adulthood. Tools so that they can develop an understanding for how they learn things, which strategies that can help them and how to reflect on their own development. In other words I speak against grades, but for learning children metacognition, which is, how you talk about and reflect on your own development and learning strategies. I think that this is more rewarding in the long run, and I truly think that it gives more benefits than a simple grade.