4

On Medals, Honors, and Grades

Most schools regularly give medals, honors and grades to their students. There are subtle but important disadvantages to these methods of motivating children to do well.

Medals and Honors

    Children must be motivated to learn not because of medals or honors, but because they are interested to learn. The love of learning and genuine interest in a subject matter are the best kinds of motivation in education. The children will develop their own initiative in learning. They will read and ask questions out of curiosity and interest even if the subjects are outside of their curriculum or their levels. They can advance at their own pace.

    Medals or honors have harmful effects on children. They give the wrong impression that the children are learning in order to acquire honors and to be better than other children. This develops the sense of competitiveness. It engenders a feeling of “I against others” in the school, instead of a spirit of cooperativeness. Those who do not receive honors can sometimes feel low self-esteem compared to those who have honors. We do not need to let others feel bad just to express our appreciation to a few pupils.

    Children should develop a spirit of excellence rather than competitiveness. Excellence means that one is able to achieve one’s best. This is the most important measure of success – attaining the highest limits of one’s own capabilities, instead of comparing oneself with the capabilities of others. Comparison and competition, on the other hand, foster insecurity and fear, as well as vanity and pride.

The world has so much conflict, insecurity, violence and unhappiness. One root cause of all these is the sense of competition and comparison. One country likes to have more Per Capita Income than another; one corporation would like to have a larger market share than another; one person would like to defeat another in election or wealth. To achieve these, people may resort to injustice, inconsiderateness and even violence.

It is all unnecessary, because a person can achieve true fulfillment and success without comparing oneself with others. Let them become what they can become, let them achieve what they can achieve, according to their best abilities, and not in order to look “more successful” than others, or feeling “inferior” to others. When wholesomely nurtured and motivated, such students will not grow up feeling insecure or inferior when they see others excelling in their own fields. They are glad to express their appreciation or admiration, but at the same time they appreciate their own achievements.

Some parents may say: “But there is real competition in society. Should we not prepare our children to be competitive?” We should prepare our children for excellence. As they grow up, they will realize that society has competition. It is up to them whether they will join such competition or not. If they do, they will not feel themselves to be failures if they do not win because they were not conditioned to believe that they are inferior just because they are not like other people. But they will continue to do their best.

Children should be nurtured to become natural achievers, without feeling insecure that others are doing better, and not feeling proud that they seem “better than others.” They will be happier in their growth and they will become true achievers. Some of the most outstanding people in history are non-competitive — Einstein, Edison, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Marie Curie, and thousands of others. They did what they have done because of love of what they were doing, rather than to appear better than others. And they are generally happier people.

Grades and Evaluation

The use of a grading system, whether by numbers (75% or 90%) or letters (A or B+), has become so standard that it is almost inconceivable for a school not to have it, especially in the tertiary level. Yet its use is fraught with disadvantages that if ever it is applied, it must be implemented with care. There are three main reasons why grades are unwholesome:

Misunderstood Purpose. Most people have forgotten the real underlying purpose of having a grading system. It is to have a method of evaluating the learning and progress of the student. Because the grading system is the easiest and most convenient method of evaluating, especially by teachers who are handling more than 10 students per class, it has become the standard way of assessing the progress of students.

Through the centuries, the “grade” has acquired a life of its own. Rather than being seen as a tool, it has become the end in itself for many students, parents and even teachers. I have seen countless students get worried and upset when they have “failing” grades (or proud when they have high grades), but I see very few students who get worried when they are not learning from a teacher or feel proud when they have mastered a subject.

In standard schools, therefore, students are supposed to have done well when they get high grades in examinations, regardless of whether they understood the subject or not. This is weird, queer and funny. And yet we don’t find it alarming that this anomalous situation is accepted matter-of-factly by students, parents, teachers and administrators. Such a system is no longer in pursuit of true education but a parody of it.

Not Accurate Evaluation. A grade is not always a reliable assessment of the progress of the student. A grade assumes an objective benchmark of competence. It has however its biases. When a history examination consists of questions that need memory work in order to answer, Susan may fare well, but Margaret may not. If the exam questions were changed into essay types that involve analysis of historical situations, Margaret may excel but Susan may flunk. Who has fared better in the subject, Margaret or Susan?

If a teacher constantly uses memory-type tests, Margaret will keep on flunking and may begin to believe that she is dumb in history, when actually she may have understood history better than Susan. Grades based on such exams therefore may not necessarily reflect the true competence of these two students regarding the subject.

Teachers who know their subjects well, and who appreciate the practical significance of the subject, will be better able to evaluate the progress of the students, and whether the students have understood the subject or not. In such cases, particularly for higher years, grades are less harmful because they may be able to reflect to a useful extent the progress of the student. But the best evaluation is still a one-on-one basis where the teacher will give direct feedback to the student on how the teacher sees the strength and weakness of the student regarding the subject.This is of course almost impossible for teachers who are handling many large classes, but efforts must be done in this direction especially for those having difficulties with the subject.

Competitive Nature. There is another aspect of grades that have a pernicious effect on the self-esteem and self-confidence of students, especially in grade school.

Grades have a way of telling children that they are dumber than others. The children begin to believe these subconscious insinuations and they begin to develop a lower esteem of their own capabilities. They feel that in the eyes of their parents and teachers, they are unworthy because they have low grades. These feelings are the roots of future neurosis.

When the giving of grades are not balanced by personal feedback and encouragement, they can become destructive to the self-esteem of students. Some public schools have classes of 70 students per class. In these cases, it is practically impossible for the teacher to give individual attention to each student. But the teacher must be conscious of the harmful effects of undiscussed grades. Efforts must be made so that grades are not taken as a rejection of the person.

While recognizing the inevitable use of grades in standard school systems, we must emphasize the harmfulness of its indiscriminate implementation.

Grades assume that there is a standard benchmark for measuring the competence of each student on a given subject. The grade measures whether the benchmark has been attained, and not necessarily whether the student has progressed or has high potential. Thus, for example, a student who started the school having low comprehension of algebra may have progressed a lot during the school year but still not attain the benchmark towards the end, and thus will flunk the subject. His exemplary effort to improve is not counted. What is important to such a system is the benchmark.

But what is that benchmark? It is a standard set by a school and may differ from another school. It is not a measurement of the potential of the child, which is as important, if not more important, than the actual present competence of the child. Remember that Einstein and Edison were considered dumb or slow when they were kids. If they did not have a strongly felt innate potential within, they could have been ruined by the negative feedback of their teachers or elders.

Grades, if they are to be used, must be used with compassion, understanding and encouragement. They must not be given undue importance for they are merely indicators of certain limited aspects of one’s knowledge. Grades are not even accurate measurements of intelligence. If Picasso flunked mathematics, does that make him unintelligent?

Many psychologists today are strongly espousing the view that intelligence cannot just be measured by standard IQ tests. These tests are designed to measure only two or three aspects of intelligence, but not all. One psychologist, Howard Gardner, has put forward the concept of multiple intelligences, consisting of nine types. He frowns at the traditional view that intelligence is measured by linguistic and logical capabilities. Is Michael Jordan less intelligent than a physics professor? Is Isadora Duncan less intelligent than Madame Curie?

These are some issues that teachers and educators must consider when making evaluations and assessments of their students. Education, as we have mentioned, is a preparation for life. It is not to pass IQ tests or have high grades.