Grade Me Not: Obituary

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Obituary

Creativity and Wonder, aged 14, left us this past April 13^th 1999, with their colleagues and teachers by their side on the premises of Graded School in urban Brazil.

Creativity and Wonder were born on July 16^th, 1985 to a passionate actress with a vivid imagination. They were the loves of their mother’s life.

Creativity and Wonder both loved live performance and the art of entertainment. They felt great joy in hearing others laugh and experiencing “A-ha!” moments, as they called it. They sought pleasure in all discoveries, including in the fields of mathematics and sciences.

They were both active members of the Church of Love of Learning. Their excitement in sharing LoL, as they fondly referred to it, made them models of the Church’s core values. Pastor LoveSpread commented, “They were exemplary members of our community and shall be greatly missed. The world is less colorful today as we mourn Creativity and Wonder.”

Creativity and Wonder are survived by their sisters, Complacency, Obedience, and Good-Girl. Their mother has been diagnosed with Depression and Anxiety Disorder and will not be attending the services. Creativity and Wonder spent their final moments in the arms of Mr. Sweetman, a teacher at Graded School.

1 comment:

LarissaApril 17, 2014 at 6:52 AM
I think this one is self-explanatory. I intended it to be a bit funny and dramatic, because I am able to look at this tale in its entirety and see that I am, well, dramatic. I don't mind it. To me, these moments were life and death. I cared deeply and so I was affected deeply.
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Abstract

At first, this project was about grades in general. As I started doing it, though, it became a research project-meets-memoir. I wanted to know the moment when grades started to feel wrong to me, when I registered the grading system as a disservice to my curiosity, and when I realized I had to be in the education system in order to change it.

I could have written more pieces, as a lot of memories and realizations surfaced, but I chose to keep it simple and with a few gaps. Grades left gaps in me, and my education often left me feeling like I couldn't voice my stories.

As one of my pieces tells, I was educated in a K-12 American School in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The school was called Graded, but as students we called it the "Bubble." It was an obscenely expensive school and housed the children of movie stars, presidents, and World Cup soccer players. Down the street from our palace of a campus was one of Sao Paulo's biggest slums, and as we drove home in our bulletproof cars, we were approached by starving children begging for money or, at times, angry teenagers with guns.

I never felt comfortable at Graded, and as I write this somewhat manifesto against the grading system, I realize it's rooted in my experiences there. I know other people have had different experiences, I know there are teachers who can make grades work to their students' benefit, and I know the kind of schools that would actually do away with grades would end up costing just as much as Graded.

I don't think that makes my story or my feelings any less real. I was a bright student with a lot of potential, and I was damaged by the grading system. As a teacher who believes education's primary responsibility is to instill curiosity, I feel I must share what I know, investigate what I feel, and question what we accept as just an aspect of teaching.

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As for how this is organized, it is designed as a blog since that's how I felt I could reach the most people should this become a manifesto one day. The posts are not in chronological order but rather in order of how they fit together in my mind.

Below each post is a comment I made explaining it. Click on comment to see the explanation. I recommend reading the entire blog first and then going back to read the comments.

Your comments are welcome here too. Please question and wonder. Share and come back.