Reading Renee and JJ’s posts allowed me to spend some time reflecting on my own journey through academe. Like Renee, I was a carefree student through high school graduation. I was absolutely consumed by my schoolish behavior-in elementary school, I would race through worksheets just to be the first one finished. I prided myself in slapping down my completed assignment on my teacher’s desk and proclaiming “Done!” before anyone else had that high honor. Despite my quick grasp of new concepts, I often lost points because of careless mistakes. I was so focused on getting the attention and praise of being the fastest thinker, I often didn’t take the time to think deeply about anything. My habit of cursory thinking and superficial completion of assignments was rewarded and continued throughout high school.

Like JJ mentioned, most of my classes covered a wide breadth of material without requiring much deep thinking. If I recall correctly, most of the critical thinking was done by my teachers, or whoever created the lesson plans they used in class. That information was then solemnly passed down to me so I could regurgitate it back to my teacher in the form of a mindless “research” paper, a conglomeration and rearrangement of the notes I had scribbled during lectures. When I finally got into a class that required me to develop my own interpretations, to think for myself (AP English Lit), I struggled, I resisted, I got a D+.

I also found myself floundering when I got to college. Putting aside my excessive partying and immaturity during my first three attempts at college, I also found that I had never learned to study or to think independently. I never learned how much time and effort it takes to come up with a new idea. To my relief, some of my classes still required and rewarded my refined abilities in schoolish behavior, but some wanted more. Some wanted me to work hard. Never in my 12+ years of education had I worked hard to receive an A. Though I appreciated the grading system at the time, I can now clearly see its flaws.

In this vein, and because of recent meetings at my school encouraging teachers to eradicate Ds and Fs on report card grades, I’ve been investigating trends in grade inflation: according to a NY Times article from 2007, (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/education/23tests.html?_r=1&scp=10&sq=grade%20inflation%20high%20school&st=nyt&oref=slogin) high school students’ grades have gone up while their reading and math abilities have gone down. This study conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress illustrates an unsettling disparity between grades and performance that my school is starting to contribute to. As compassionate a bleeding heart I can often be, I’m fed up with the second and third and fourth and fifth chances we (at my school) are being “suggested” to give students who consistently refuse to take responsibility for their actions (or, more often, inactions). I’m saddened and angered and frustrated by the disservice we’re doing to students: they are learning the lesson that they don’t have to do anything to merit a reward but still receive it. This strategy is creating a plague of entitlement among young people. Our feeder school even goes so far as to absolutely refuse to fail any students, regardless of ability or effort put forth.

I agree with JJ’s call for a complete overhaul of our educational system, as daunting as that may be. Instead of giving students grades based on what we hope they might one day possibly be able to achieve/learn/demonstrate/understand, I believe that a much more effective, meaningful, and honest method would be to give students grades based on demonstrated learning. I believe that authentic assessment tools can gauge this criteria quite well. However, more emphasis is often placed on repeating things that other people have learned, instead of using higher level thinking skills to demonstrate one’s own learning. In my school, emphasis is also placed on “How many times did the parents call complaining about the grade?,” “Will the student be able to wrestle if he fails your class?,” and “What good will it do the student to keep him here another year?”.

I apologize (to those of you who have read this far) for my ranting and raving. However, as we have been talking about the various purposes for reading and for writing, I’ve found this particular piece to be quite . . . therapeutic.