The Degrading Grade

When I was a young college student I was asked to write a piece of music for an assignment. The requirements were that it should be an anthem on the religious topic of my choice. I searched to find one that meant a great deal to me, thinking that my personal conviction might add strength and fervor to the music. Upon completion, my work was given to the instructor and for several days I anxiously awaited the results. When at last the composition was returned, I felt a curious uneasiness. As I mustered the courage to finally look at my paper I was disturbed by what I found. There, in big, bold, red ink was a grade.

Why, at this moment in my life, a grade should bother me I could not exactly say. All I knew was that it somehow seemed wrong to listen to a piece of music that came from heart-felt convictions and instead of offering a heart-felt response in return, simply place a letter, classifying the work in a range of acceptable or unacceptable. It was as if I suddenly realized that you cannot grade another human being, nor indeed, their work.

Since the time I entered the first grade I was familiar with the grading system. When you are young it seems like a challenge and it pushes you to do better. As you get older, the grade dogs your steps because you know that without it you cannot graduate, go to college, get a job nor succeed in life (or so you are told). This negative reenforcement becomes heavier as the years progress until you finally free yourself of it when you leave school. The relief we have all felt upon liberation from the almighty grade was real and tangible. Yet, are we ever truly free of it?

I once heard a sixty-year-old man say that he was the student whose bad grade made the A grade possible. In other words, to whom would we compare the A student if everyone got an A. I have been a teacher and have known many teachers in my life. They are required to give out only a certain percentage of each grade. “The Curve” is the term used for the reasoning behind the percentages. Someone in the history of education decided that when people learn you can easily categorize them into fast learners, medium learners and slow learners. The grade labels them as such whether intentionally or otherwise. People from the time they are in school until they die will refer to themselves as a 'C' student, or whatever their 'grade' was.

Think of it! A human being with an almost infinite capacity for learning, only marginally tapped by their surroundings, labeled 'C' for 'third-class citizen' ! People never forget it. A child who failed a certain grade, regardless of the circumstances, will carry that label with him until he lays down to die. So why do we do this to children when they are young and impressionable? Why do we seek as early as kindergarten to label little ones, as though they were merely a carton of eggs?

There is no end to the research that shows that each child is unique in how they learn and process information. There is also ample evidence that shows that some who fail to earn the grade can still succeed in life.

After writing music from my heart and at least hoping that the response I would receive would be from the heart, I understood that whatever I do and whatever my children do should be met with an honest and sincere response that reflects the truth, without a grade by which children learn to compare themselves with others and sometimes end up hating themselves and others for the comparison.

If my child brings me a work of art, I do not place a grade upon it and compare it with other works of art either in the room or in history. I simply notice things about the painting that I like, things the child has done well, and finally, if appropriate, I might suggest ways that their next painting might include certain other qualities. If you had two children standing in the room you would not look at them both and say, pointing to one and the other: “You are the A child and you are the F child.” and then proceed to banish the F child from your society. If you would not do that then why would you ask someone else to do it to your children. To grade is to de-grade. To teach is to encourage. I know which one I hoped for and didn't get, and I know which one I got and wished I hadn't.