I
once read a true story about a psychologist who lived in a
neighborhood where the local kids would often play in his yard. This
annoyed him. So he offered to pay them a dime for each time they
would come play in his yard.
(This
is an old story. I’m sure it would take at least a quarter now.
Also, I am sure the idea would freak out their parents once they
heard about it and they would be forbidden from ever talking to this
man again. Because why would he want kids playing in his yard so
much, anyway?)
Then,
after a few weeks, he told them he wasn’t going to pay them
anymore. So they showed him. They stopped playing in his yard if he
wasn’t going to pay up.
This
story was used in a psychology class I once took as an example of how
externally rewarding a behavior that is already naturally rewarding —
i.e. playing in the yard — actually removes the natural reward
and makes it a chore.
My
oldest daughter has always loved learning. By association, she has
usually enjoyed school. She doesn’t especially like the demands
of school — the rules, the schedule, the procedures — but
she loves learning new things and sharing the experience with others.
She
has always been a grade ahead in math and years ahead in reading.
Spelling tests are a breeze, and science is fun. Except for the
Science Fair. That’s mostly torture. Because the Science Fair
has very little to do with learning and very much to do with showing
you know how to follow rules.
She
has always liked the learning — which, in my mind, is the point
of school. To learn.
This
is why I have always disliked the practice of giving grades in
elementary school. (I don’t especially like it for older grades
either, but I see it as a necessary evil. That’s a topic for
another day.)
When
my daughter first started attending an academically rigorous charter
school in first grade, I was surprised and unhappy to find that every
assignment got a letter grade. Everyone I would talk to about it —
about why I thought grades at this age were inappropriate —
would nod sagely and then ask with a knowing air, “So her
grades aren’t so good, huh?”
What?
Were you even listening to what I just said?
Her
grades were fine, I would assure them. And then I would change the
subject, because apparently I was talking to someone who bought into
the idea that grades are somehow magical indicators of success in
life.
I
don’t like grades because they are the dime for playing in the
yard. Children are inherently curious people, and at young ages,
eager to learn and please adults. They don’t need the impetus
of grades to compel them to learn. And I think supplanting their
natural desire to learn with a desire for good grades is a tragedy.
This
is why we have never really cared much about our children’s
grades. We treat them as one of many clues that help us keep tabs on
whether they are being responsible for themselves (by following
school rules and turning in their work) and whether they are trying
their best.
Taking
responsibility for themselves and trying their best, in my mind, are
far superior indicators of whether they will be successful in life
than are good grades.
It
is true, if one of my children’s grades plummet, I am going to
ask some questions. But, they will all be questions that center
around the value of personal accountability, and are never designed
to shame, guilt-trip, pressure, or call into question their
intelligence.
I
tell you all this because it is necessary back story for what we
experienced this year with our oldest daughter.
She
came home from the first day of sixth grade saying, “I hate
school.”
I
was a bit concerned.
After
two weeks she hadn’t changed her tune. After three weeks she
hadn’t changed the permanent scowl on her face.
So,
I emailed the teacher. Her response was that we could talk about it
in parent-teacher conferences in two weeks, and had I checked her
grades yet?
No,
I hadn’t, because of the aforementioned reasons.
So,
I checked them. They were abysmal. That is when I sat my daughter
down and looked her in the eye and asked her what was going on. I was
not happy with what I learned. I offered right then to yank her out
of school and homeschool her. She thought that was the best idea she
had ever heard. Could we do it right away, please?
When
I went to the school to check her out, her teacher’s response
was kind but also betrayed her bias. She said she wanted what was
best for my daughter and hoped this would be it. That was nice. She
also said she was sure that this way I could keep a better eye on her
and make sure she did her work.
And
that was exactly the reason I was pulling her out of this classroom.
Can
you imagine if your boss at work changed every year? And so did
three-quarters of your co-workers?
And
on top of this, that the majority of procedures changed at the same
time? All daily scheduled meetings were now at different times this
year; the proscribed lunch hour was at a different time, the times
you were allowed to use the bathroom changed, as did the color of pen
you were allowed to use, the place and time you were allowed to turn
in your work, even the method by which you were allowed to approach
your boss changed? Every year?
This
is what it is like for an elementary-aged student to start off each
new school year.
On
top of all this, my daughter had a teacher this time with a
preponderance of rules. Rules on top of rules. For example, one
cannot simply raise one’s hand in this classroom. One must do
so with one of six accompanying hand-signals, indicating whether one
wishes to ask a question, make a comment, answer a question, use the
bathroom, get a Kleenex, or turn in a paper.
This
teacher seemed to think that what my daughter needed to succeed was
even more structure. Structure I would surely give her at
home. It was obvious to me that the teacher assumed I was yanking her
out of school because her grades were bad. That had nothing to do
with it. The grades were just a symptom of the problem.
Rather,
what she needed was far, far less structure. Indeed, after enrolling
her in an online school offered as a public school in Utah, all I do
for her at home is set her to work in front of the computer and
answer about five questions a day. She does the rest.
She
likes to learn and she has learned to work hard. I don’t have
to cajole her, or bribe her and scold her. I occasionally remind her
of a time constraint or of a forgotten assignment.
I
am deeply troubled as a parent and an educator about the increasingly
larger role our society is placing on the numbers in education: the
percentiles, the grades, the standardized test scores. Certainly none
of this is designed to protect the intrinsic rewards of learning —
the sated curiosity, the question that sparks interest, the mystery
waiting to be answered, the draw of cognitive dissonance that makes
us want to find out “why?”
Rather,
we are piling more and more importance onto the extrinsic rewards;
the fake ones that are like paper money that are only worth what we
believe them to be.
I
once worked for a professor at BYU whom I greatly admire. Besides
teaching classes, one of his duties was to the admissions committee.
He personally read hundreds of applicants to BYU each year.
He
once discussed this with me. I was gratified to know, that at the
time at least, there were no “magic numbers” that
necessarily gave a student a spot or prevented them from having a
spot at the school. The admissions committee looked at the whole
person represented by each applicant.
This
professor had a quote outside his office. I haven’t been
successful in tracking it down to credit its author. But, it went
something like this, “The value of an institution should not be
judged on the quality of student it accepts, but on the quality of
student it graduates.”
I
am not one of those moms who want to homeschool all of my children to
prevent them from being brainwashed or to protect them from gunmen
bent on taking down a roomful of children. I have known moms like
this.
In
fact, I really don’t want to homeschool at all.
But,
in this case, it seemed like the quality of student in my house that
would graduate from this sixth grade class would be one that hated
learning.
I
do not want learning to ever become a chore for my children. Yes, I
know the necessary work for learning is sometimes boring, sometimes
difficult or frustrating, and sometimes a chore. But when a child
discovers he can do something new, like write his name in cursive, or
that he know something no one else in the family does, like how far
away the earth is from the sun, or when he can finally do long
division, (just like my big sister!) he has his reward. The
joy of knowledge is the reward.
The
job of any institution of learning — the elementary school, the
piano studio, the karate dojo, the dance company, the Sunday School,
the home — is to help the learners become more than they
were before. To make them want to learn less means that
institution has failed.
So,
sixth grade teacher, you can keep your dime. I just want to play in
the yard because playing is fun.
Emily
Jorgensen received her bachelor's degree in piano performance from
Brigham Young University. She earned her master's degree in
elementary music education, also at BYU. She holds a Kodaly
certificate in choral education, as well as permanent certification
in piano from Music Teacher’s National Association.
She
has taught piano, solfege, and children’s music classes for 17
years in her own studio. She has also taught group piano classes at
BYU.
She
is an active adjudicator throughout the Wasatch Front and has served
in local, regional, and state positions Utah Music Teachers'
Association, as well as the Inspirations arts contest chair at
Freedom Academy.
She
gets a lot of her inspiration for her column by parenting her own
rambunctious four children, aged from “in diapers” to
“into Harry Potter.” She is still married to her high
school sweetheart and serves in her ward’s Primary.