The grading of children in primary school


Two weeks ago, I returned the test results in Spanish to my seventh-grade pupils. After going through the test, a question popped up, as I suspected: What grade does this result correspond to? I explained to them that I would not give them grades but, in its place, give them feedback on what they had achieved. They were requested to look again and see after what objectives they achieved. A few confused eyes were still looking for my intention and asked me the same question again.

A grade means everything to a pupil. It is hard to explain that it is the learning process and what they learn that counts instead. As long as pupils continue to orientate towards grades, they will lose interest in learning itself. But, this is, of course, not their fault. Our politicians have had this debate about grading for a long time now. What is best for our pupils – to grade them or not?

I cannot see grading as a positive thing; mainly because pupils focus more on getting a grade then challenge them to develop learning. It is a real challenge for a teacher as well to motivate students to study and explain what use they will have with their studies. We just have to find our ways. I believe that pupils should not be exposed for grades, especially not in primary school. If they learn to focus on wrong thing at early age, than we have to struggle even more in secondary school to change that focus.

Some people may say that grades motivate learning. Grades might have the impression that they stimulate learning, when they in fact only stimulate pupils to do as much as they believe satisfies the teacher. There is no learning taking place, because all the facts they have “learned” one week will be gone until next, when it’s time for a new test to take place. One might think that pupils need some kind of feedback so they can work more successfully, which is totally true; but grades are simply not appropriate means of accomplishment in this case.

Furthermore, there is a problem with being just in grading. Teachers may give different grades when it comes to a single piece of work. A colleague may give a “vg” on an assignment, where I would give a “g”. So why put our children through this? In today’s school all students have to pass all the subjects. They are expected to be good at everything, even if we know the simple true that we cannot be experts in everything. But why then put a label on them, by grading? Aren’t we contributing to a lower self-esteem in doing so?

My point is that learning in itself does not have to be graded in scales. A feedback on what one have learnt and what improvements can be done, can be made by other means, like written comments. Grading is not the answer. The main problem of this issue tends to be the orientation in schools. It simply has to change from a grade orientation to a learning orientation.

Love deserves to be the Christmas gift of the year 2010

How many times haven’t you felt that you just have to buy a lot of meaningless stuffs for Christmas because you haven’t had the time to really make your gifts more personal? Every year we spend thousands of crowns on Christmas gifts. One or two might be very thoughtful gifts but the rest of them are often just garbage and you buy them because you feel that you need to do it since everybody else is doing it as well. And not to mention all the money we spend, feeling in the same time, that we can’t afford everything. A simple thing like spending time with your family instead would be much more appreciated gift.

    Our stressful lifestyle today does not permit us to socialize as much as we maybe wish for with our nearest and dearest. We are always in a hurry, we need to get millions of things done in one day and than if we have time or if we don’t feel too tired we spend some quality time with our families. To show some appreciations for each other, to listen to each other, seems not to have the priority in the everyday life. Therefore it would be convenient to dedicate ourselves and our love to our families at least for Christmas.

    I am not saying no to material things, especially not for our youngest. Of course they need both love and things to be happy about. Admittedly, the joy we see in their eyes once they open their gifts is a gift for us in itself. Yet many adults can feel the pressure to give away the perfect gift ending up buying another pointless thing that will collect dust on the ceiling. Why spend all that money because of the pressure?

    A convivial time together and appreciation for being together doesn’t have to cost anything. Isn’t it a perfect gift? I maintain that love shown in different ways can spread a lot of more joy than any material thing can do. Instead of helter-skelter kind of shopping in hasty Christmas time, let’s just relax, take time for each other and simply be together. In a word, let’s balance our lives with all these other things we have time for and give each other a simple Christmas gift this year: love!