Today interim reports went home--I cannot believe we have been in school 5 weeks! I am not a huge fan of giving students grades--does it truly reflect what a student knows or does not know? In all of the professional literature I have read lately about 21st century learners, it says we should be moving away from number grades and federally mandated testing. Instead we should be looking at students' collaborative and independent work as well as their competency of critical skills. I think this is great, but how do we convince parents that this is the future of education?
Last summer I read the book, The Global Achievement Gap, by Tony Wagner--I highly recommend this book to all educators. This book was very eye-opening in the facts that even America's best schools are really far behind many nations in math and science due to us not teaching key critical survival skills. What I found very interesting though was was a technical high school in California has been piloting a program where students do not receive grades or take federal mandated testing--instead they complete high stakes projects to move on to the next grade or graduate. Data that has been taken on the growth of these students' critical thinking skills as well as the other survival skills (see below) are colossal compared to an average school. Also, the dropout rate is much lower. Can we eventually move to this system without an uproar? I think it would be great, but it will be a long time coming before this happens.
The Seven Survival Skills of the 21st Century as defined in the book:
•Critical Thinking and Problem-solving
•Collaboration across Networks and Leading by Influence
•Agility and Adaptability
•Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
•Effective Oral and Written Communication
•Accessing and Analyzing Information
•Curiosity and Imagination
Thanks for sharing this information, Lindsey. For the past 10 years, our district has discussed whether or not we should continue to give out grade and report cards. We always end up doing them because the parents want them. The facts you presented are definitely interesting to me. I will be purchasing this book very soon. Thanks again for sharing!
ReplyDeleteWe have never had the discussion in our district about not giving grades, I think the parent population here in our area would flip out. Everything here is about grades, even in 3rd grade. We use a number system as well that parents don't ever seem to understand which makes it more difficult when parents are constantly questioning your grading of their child. It is very difficult at times but we do the best we can to give the grade we feel represents the student.
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