"I've got to be honest, this is not your best effort"

 **Note:  I wrote this a few weeks ago and never got around to posting.   Enjoy!**

Each Sunday my in-laws have my wife, my son, and I over for lunch after Church.  This past week, I gobbled up my pork tenderloin, red-skinned potatoes, and green beans and found the perfect moment to quietly excuse myself to catch the end of some basketball games.  As I sat watching Kentucky put away Florida in the final minutes, my wife entered the room laughing hysterically. 

“Did you hear that?” she said.  “No, what’s up?” I replied.

Grandma had made a cake for dessert and as the rest of the family was eating (I don’t really do sweets) she made a comment suggesting feedback on the quality of the cake. 

“Grandpa, out of the blue, just said ‘I’ve got to be honest, this is not your best effort’ and had this look on his face that he was so serious, can you believe it?  It was so funny!”

I don’t know if my wife wanted me to laugh along with her or what, but my reaction was something like “well, she wanted feedback, I’m happy he was honest.” 

Had he not been honest, nobody else would have.  Everyone laughed not only because it is funny, but I’d bet much of the laughter was out of disbelief that someone would be that open so suddenly.  I get the part about not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings, but if people are never made aware of shortcomings, I do not believe they’ll ever reach their potential because they will store away in their mind that what they have done is good enough and will never look to improve. 

I translate this to school when I look at the way we grade students.  I cannot stand grades as they are in our system today.  We grade because we are supposed to and have always graded this way and have been conditioned to believe that it is the best and only way to evaluate our students.  Anymore, grades do not reflect what a student knows or has achieved, but they reflect the student’s level of compliance mixed with a touch of memorization topped off with an ounce of actual intelligence (recipe not exact, season to taste). 

Two examples of my disgust for grades from this past week: 

1.  I had a young man meet with me to discuss his grade.  He was not upset that he had a 95%, but was upset that his buddy also had a 95%.  “My project was better than his,” was his comment.  I proceeded to ask him why he was upset with this and why he was using others as his gauge.  “Did you do your best?  Did you learn what you set out to learn?  Are you satisfied with what you did?  Did you invest in your own education making yourself a better person and learner?”  His answer was yes to all of these, and before the end of our conversation he had made a complete 180 and was admitting to me that the reason he was upset was that he’s always thought of a grade as the only measurement because that is what he has been told.  Grades and class rankings have brainwashed our students to do things to earn a grade so that they can compare themselves with others, not to do things to learn, improve themselves, and acquire new skills. 

2.  A young lady asked me to read an article she wrote for the school paper.  Before I read it, another teacher that was standing there with me asked her if it was any good.  She said, “yes, I got an A+.”  We both inquired further asking what that A+ meant.  She stumbled a bit over some dissatisfying explanations (to both herself and my colleague and I) and ended with, “well, it is proof.  It is proof that it is good.”

I read the article and was very proud of her because it was an opinion column that took an unpopular side in regards to school systems (right up my alley right?).  Anyway, I didn’t want to say that it wasn’t an A+ paper because I didn’t know the requirements of the assignment, but I was left with an empty feeling.  I told her “well, it’s ok” because I thought it could be so much better.  I thought her topic really could have been a home run, and she had settled for a single because she had been told that she had an A+. 

Later on that day, I thought about how I was dissatisfied with the feedback I gave her because she had to run off to her next class.  I felt as though I had let her down.  I didn’t give her the feedback that Grandpa gave Grandma about the cake.  I gave feedback that the cake was “ok,” leaving her without the desire to make it better.  I sought her out later in the day and confirmed what I had thought.  I confirmed with her that she had a passion about this subject, and that she wrote an opinion column, but didn’t put her full thought into the paper because she was afraid of having that opinion that challenged the status quo.  I encouraged her to share her opinion, and to improve her paper despite that A+ mark.  Why can’t we all just encourage students to have the very best product each and every time?  Why let a student settle for something less?  I am not blaming other teachers, I am guilty of this at times, but we cannot accept mediocrity and slap a grade on a paper that makes them believe mediocrity is the standard. 

I could go on and on with my feelings about this subject, but these individual cases are not the issue.  The issue is that here were young people that invested in an assignment of some kind without the sole desire to do it for themselves and to do their very best no matter what.  They set out to earn a grade that gave them satisfaction or proof of success.  Until we reach a point that students come to school each and every day with the goal of improving rather than earning a grade, we’ll never get the very best from them.  We need more teachers, administrators, and parents to look at their student and tell them “I have to be honest, this isn’t your best effort” and help them to create that very best product, not just slap a value to it and move on.