Grade Me Not: Why Graded

Friday, April 11, 2014

Why Graded

i grew up poor

i was a public school teacher

it was the best school in the country

in the continent

maybe in the world

there weren’t many choices

if it weren’t graded it would be some other private school

we thought the most expensive school meant the best school

we were impressed by the resources

all those libraries gyms auditoriums field trips fancy classrooms full of computers

no one had computers then

now that i know my daughter i see she would have gotten more out of a waldorf or montessori school

a creative environment suited for an imaginative child

but we don’t know our children

we don’t know them for a very long time

so we do what we think is best

mom

i grew up poor

i was a war refugee

i went to british boarding schools so i knew two things for sure

no british education system

and no boarding schools

i thought graded was beautiful

the large campus

all the open space

the teachers seemed kind

i could offer my kids the best

so i did

dad

1 comment:

LarissaApril 17, 2014 at 6:49 AM
Without much prompting, my parents have shared their reasoning with me. I didn't ask them to write these letters, I imagined them, but it came from things they've said over time. I have nothing but gratitude for their intentions and sacrifices, and I feared publishing this and seeming like a spoiled brat. But they raised me to tell the truth, and so I felt I had to include their perspective here.
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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.