Grade Me Not: Science,

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Science,

I boxed:

interest in the skeleton,

wonderings on whales,

the entire left brain.

(It’s like later in life when

I try speaking French.)

It's not you, it's me.

So long.

1 comment:

LarissaApril 17, 2014 at 6:55 AM
This is meant to be a text-message or short email to the discipline of Science. One of the saddest things about grades is that it places value on that which we are naturally good at and encourages us to pursue only our strengths. I graduated from high school and thought I'd really never open another science book again. It wasn't until I became fascinated with the skeleton in order to understand an acting technique that I realized I loved science. It still isn't easy for my brain to think logically, but I like pursuing something that isn't naturally easy for me. Who knows, maybe calculus is next...
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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.