Grades

Sometime over the past year, while I was not paying attention, Lucy started bringing home papers with actual grades on them. Not smiley face stickers, which were the extent of the grading in kindergarten, or comments like, "good work!" or even corrections to mistakes, which sometimes happened in first grade. But actual percentage scores, obtained by way of a grading rubric and often translated into a letter. And if you think that she has not noticed this, then I can only say that I wish you were right.

As you have probably worked out for yourself by now, I am a college mathematics professor. This job, like all jobs, has its own set of joys and frustrations. The joys are probably obvious: the times when students get excited about the subject, have breakthroughs of understanding, ask (and answer) interesting questions, that sort of thing. Many of the frustrations are simply the complementary experiences: when students are bored, or uninterested, or frustrated themselves. But perhaps the principal frustration of my job is the almost universal fact that students work for grades. Even students who genuinely value learning for its own sake, and these are considerably less common than I might hope, usually aim their efforts not at learning itself but at earning good grades.

In a perfect world, of course, grades would reflect learning. But even if grades reflected precisely the learning that we hope to evaluate (which they do not, the world not yet being perfect), there is a fundamental difference of approach between learning for its own sake and learning to earn a grade. Grades are the mother of all extrinsic motivators (money, I suppose, being the father), and like other extrinsic motivators they teach students to look outward, rather than inward, for their rewards.

Young children understand that learning is an intrinsically rewarding activity. Infants learn to walk, toddlers learn to draw, preschoolers learn to count, and kindergartners learn to read, all because those things are fun to learn and interesting to be able to do. Then, suddenly, we start grading them. In the space of less than one academic year, children are no longer proudly announcing their new skills, they are proudly announcing their grades. Or, in some cases, not so proudly. And what is a grade, really? A grade is a summary judgment of a person's ability and achievement, distilled, usually, into a single character. How absurd is that? I mean, come on! Twenty years of multiple intelligence theory and this is still the best we can do?

I am publicly on record as being against assessment, at least the excessively quantitative forms of assessment that are currently so popular in education. But not all forms of assessment are created equal. Qualitative feedback helps students learn, and helps them hold onto the enjoyment of learning that comes so naturally at the beginning. All grades do is encourage students to become obsessed with performance, and discouraged if they do not perform well. And I can tell you from experience that when students enjoy learning, the entire process of education is more rewarding, and more successful, for everyone.

I am not naive enough to believe that we can eliminate grades at the college level, at least not in my lifetime. I have my doubts about the high school level, too. But could we not, at the very least, stop grading children in elementary school? Could we postpone, just for a few years, squelching the joy kids take in learning? Because it is painful to watch a child begin to worry about grades, but it is hard to fight and damn near impossible to correct later.

Motivation

When I was in elementary school, if you were naughty you went to the principal's office. What happened there I never knew, because I was never naughty. Well, I never got caught being naughty, anyway. Ask my brother. While you're at it, ask him what went on in the principal's office.

Anyway, children today still get sent to the principal's office, but, like almost everything else about elementary school, the process has gotten significantly more complicated in the intervening 20 (OK, 30) years. At Old Forge Elementary, for example, they have the stoplight system. Here's how it works: each child has a clothespin with his or her name on it, and in the classroom there is a big poster of something resembling a large traffic light. All the children (clothespins) start the day on green. When a child is naughty, he (his clothespin) moves to yellow. If he shapes up, he moves back to green; if not, he stays on yellow. If he gets worse, he moves to red. If he punches the teacher in the nose, he goes to the principal's office. Or something like that.

At the end of the day, the teacher puts a stamp in each child's Behavior Folder (yep). The color of the stamp corresponds to the color on which the child (clothespin) ended the day. Regardless of the color of the stamp, the child's parent must sign the BF each night to show that she has seen the stamp. At the end of the week, children who got green stamps all week get to choose from the Prize Box (yep). The Prize Box is stocked with all manner of rejected Happy Meal toys, all of which are highly coveted by my non-Happy-Meal-eating children.

I told you. Complicated.

However, I'm pretty used to this by now. The kids come home, dump their backpacks in the kitchen, and make for the snacks. I unload the backpacks, sort out the multitude of forms, homework, and advertisements for soccer teams, and sign the BF. At this point, if I may say so, I could do it with my eyes closed. And apparently that's just about what I was doing, until one day two weeks ago. I was mid-sort, mid-snack negotiation, just lowering the pen to sign Ben's BF, when I stopped. Looked. Frowned. Squinted. What WAS that? It didn't look like it usually did.

It was a yellow stamp. I'd never seen one before.

Well.

There was a second yellow that week, and two more last week. This means that in addition to being subjected to (presumably) embarrassment in front of his peers and (definitely) interrogation by his parents, Ben did not get to choose a prize either week. This was definitely a Big Deal. And, indeed, this week he has all green stamps and is excited that he will get to choose a prize. So it works, right? Not so fast.

Here's the thing: this kind of behavior modification program relies heavily, perhaps exclusively, on extrinsic motivation. In other words, the kid is behaving because of what he gets, or doesn't get, from the outside world as a result. Research shows that this works great on little kids, which is undoubtedly why it's so popular in places where there are a lot of kids to control (like elementary schools). The problem is that it stops working as kids get older and, worse, teaches them that they deserve to be rewarded for doing the right thing.

If the Stoplight/Behavior Folder/Prize Box setup were the only one of its kind at Old Forge, I could probably overlook it. But it's not. Indeed, far from it. In addition to the BF there is the BUG (Being Unusually Good) award, in which a student who is especially kind to another student gets a lollipop and a certificate. The Golden Table award, in which a student who exhibits "good character" (the subject of a whole other post, let me assure you) gets to eat lunch on the cafeteria stage while wearing a medal. The Leopard Dollar system, in which students earn pretend money for doing things like their homework. Their homework! The Perfect Attendance award, in which a student with perfect attendance in a given month gets a certificate, some Leopard Dollars, and an invitation to an ice cream party. I could go on.

The trouble with all this is that it teaches kids that they should expect to be materially rewarded for doing the right thing, and that, if they are not, there is really no reason to do it. Even worse, it makes whatever provides a material reward appear to be the right thing to do. Can you think of any examples of behavior governed by that kind of skewed code of ethics in our recent history? Gee, let me think.

I'm not saying that the global financial crisis is Old Forge elementary school's fault. At least, not exactly. But I am saying that raising kids who respond primarily to extrinsic motivators is a bad idea. Really bad. Instead of, "here's your prize!" how about, "you should be really proud of yourself for behaving so well!" Or instead of, "here's your perfect attendance certificate," how about, "I'll bet you learned a lot this month since you were in school every day." Or instead of, "have a lollipop for being so nice!" how about, "doesn't it make you feel good when you help someone else?" No Happy Meal toys required.

T Plus Two

Ben started kindergarten on Thursday.

Like virtually everything else, the experience of sending number two off to school was completely different from the first time around. I just couldn't seem to get worked up about it. Indeed, over the last few weeks quite a few people (who apparently actually read what I write here) have asked when I plan to post something about this, and I had started to feel a little guilty about not giving Ben's departure the same maternal angst that I so generously lavished on Lucy's. Right up to Wednesday night, I was completely cavalier about the whole thing. Even on Thursday morning, I was busily making special lunches and snapping first day pictures without a care in the world.

Because it was his first day, I drove him to school, and we chatted happily the whole way. I parked and walked him in. We found his seat, and he got out his brand new 24-pack of crayons, the one he wasn't going to have to share with his sister. He started to draw.

I said, "I can stay for a few minutes, but then I'm going to have to go to work."

He said, "Bye."

So I gave him a kiss and left. Wow, that was easy.

I walked back to my car, got in, and burst into tears.

Which is exactly what happened the morning I dropped Lucy off for the first time, except that this time I wasn't expecting it. This time it was kind of like when you stand up and whack the back of your head on something you didn't realize was there. Part of the resultant pain is from the whack, but part of it is just surprise, your brain going, "what was THAT? I didn't know there was something behind me!"

I cried all the way to work, absently wondering what was going on. Through meetings and lunch and more meetings, I sniffled and wondered. When I got home, I was greeted with enthusiastic hugs and stories of the first day, and I realized that I had not been worried about him. That wasn't it. What, then?

It wasn't until the next day, after the kids were at school and John was at work and I was getting ready to do my usual Friday morning chores, that it hit me: I'm alone here. It's over.

So that's what this is about, I thought. I don't have little kids anymore. I have... big kids. Schoolkids.

I haven't been home alone on a weekday in over seven years. It's very... quiet. I vacuumed the whole house without once stopping to play with legos or fix a transformer. For some reason, it took twice as long as usual. This is going to take some getting used to.

Party Favors

I don't mean to be ungracious, but really, what is up with party favors these days? When I think, "party favor," I think, "balloon," or maybe, "ziplock baggie filled with cheap, unnecessary plastic objects that will break within 48 hours and be in the landfill by next week." Although I'm not exactly a fan of this kind of party favor, it is at least on a scale appropriate to the observation of an elementary school birthday.

Lately, however, it seems like party favors are escalating. Lucy has been bringing home from the seemingly unending stream of birthday parties she attends a series of "favors" that, in my opinion, would more accurately be termed "gifts." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that in our culture it is the birthday child who is supposed to get the gifts, not the guests. Maybe I'm old-fashioned (OK, I'm old-fashioned) but it seems to me that the party itself is the gift to the guests. Imagine if, every time I had a dinner party, I not only served the guests dinner, wine, and dessert, but sent them home with tote bags full of jewelry and toenail polish. Absurd, right? Yet that's what happens at these parties.

Recent party favors have included tee shirts, flip-flops, picture frames, dolls, even live potted plants. And actually, none of these things would be so bad if they came alone. ("Here's your cute little potted geranium to remember Suzie's birthday!" I'm down with that.) The trouble is that they come grouped into increasingly larger containers. First came the paper gift bag, full of stuff. Next came the cloth tote bag, correspondingly full. Most recently, Lucy actually brought home a bucket full of favors. That's right, a bucket. Stickers, activity books, stuffed animals, clothing, makeup (yes, makeup), pens and pencils, and, of course, candy. Always candy.

Fellow parents, I am begging you! Stop this madness. Kids don't need more stuff. They need to have fun playing with each other, and that is what you are so generously giving them when you invite them to your child's birthday party. Skip the bucket, OK? We'll all be happier in the long run.

Corporate

Somehow, don't ask me how, I got sucked into being on the silent auction committee at Lucy's school this year. This is a job involving mostly begging for donations, which in the current economic climate is not exactly a rewarding endeavor. Nonetheless, begging I have gone, asking at stores all over the county and beyond for a little something for the auction. I have asked at coffee shops and malls, yoga studios and department stores, even gas stations and supermarkets.

Now, believe me when I say that I am sympathetic to the position that one should not have to give donations to the public schools, particularly when one does not even have children attending them. Did we not all pay thousands of dollars to the federal government for this very purpose just last month? Do we not sell tens of millions of dollars' worth of lottery tickets to the quantitatively illiterate to ensure, among other things, the financial health of our schools? Why, yes, we did, and we do. So why is this crazy woman with the redheaded boy in tow asking for a free half pound of coffee? I get that. I do. Furthermore, I get that the recession has been very hard on the retail sector, and that altruism may not be at the top of their list of motivators at this particular juncture.

So I expected a lot of rejection at the outset. I figured that most of the mom-and-pops would turn me down, having been hit the hardest. I thought a lot of regional chains would probably say no, too. My best chance, I decided, was the huge national megastores, which were presumably large enough to weather the downturn with their $20 gift cards intact. I figured, for example, that Wal-Mart was doing OK, since in times of economic hardship people previously unwilling to shop there might be forced to cede the high moral ground in order to afford clothing for their kids. Places like Toys R Us, The Gap, Home Depot. They have a little something to spare, right?

Wrong. Here is an approximate transcript of a visit to one of these stores:

Guy Behind the Counter: Hi! Welcome to Toys R Us [Wal-Mart, The Gap, Home Depot, etc.]! Can I help you?

Me: Hi! Yes! I'm with the Old Forge Elementary PTA, and we're having a silent auction in May to raise money to buy technology packages for the classrooms [proffer official letter]. We're hoping you might be able to donate something for the auction. Anything would help - a gift card, an overstocked item, whatever.

GBtC: [eyes glaze over, speaks in a monotone] I'm sorry. I can't handle that here. You'll have to contact our corporate headquarters via our web site, [quotes web address].

Me: Oh. OK. Thanks anyway.

I must have had this conversation 50 times over the last month. I ask for a donation, I get referred to Corporate. OK, so, I'm no stranger to the internet, I went ahead and hit those web sites, which are absurdly difficult to navigate (unlike the main sites for the stores themselves). I filled out web forms, I sent emails. Here, then, is an exact transcript of an exchange with one such corporate headquarters, which shall remain nameless:

My email:
Hello,
I am on the PTA at Old Forge Elementary School in Maryland. We will be having a silent auction next month, and I visited your store in the Valley Mall today to ask if they would be able to donate an item or a gift card for the auction. I spoke with Brittany, the manager there, and she told me that I needed to contact you electronically about this. I am attaching a letter containing more information about the auction and our school. Our taxpayer ID number is available on request. I know many of the students and parents at our school shop at your store - I hope you will be able to help us!

Thank you,
Kira Hamman

Their response:
Thank you for your inquiry. [Name of company] is committed to investing in the communities we serve. We believe we should go beyond the basics of ethical business practices and embrace our responsibility to people and to the planet. We believe this brings sustained, collective value to our shareholders, our employees, our customers and society. Social responsibility is fundamental to who we are and how we operate as a company. We invite you to visit our web site at [address] to read about the projects we are currently supporting.

If I can be of any further assistance, please let me know.

[Name]

My response to their response:
So is that a no?

Yeah, so, it turns out I was right about the quantity of rejection, but dead wrong about its source. It turns out that, in hard times, it's the people in your own community who help you out. The local hardware store. The dog groomer. The dentist's office. The dentist's office! They put together a gift basket for us! The hair salon. The local pizzeria (Domino's said no). The bowling alley. And so on. Here's an approximate transcipt of a visit to one of these stores:

Lady Behind the Counter, who is also the owner: Whaddaya need, honey?

Me: Hi! I'm on the Old Forge PTA, and -

LBtC: Oh, my kids went there years ago! Such a nice little school. Is Mrs. Waterman still there?

Me: Uh, I don't think so. I'm not sure. My daughter is only in first grade -

LBtC: Oh, that's the best age! They love school so much at that age! And how old is your little one [gesturing to Ben]? Isn't his hair something else?

This can go on for some time, until finally:

LBtC: So you need something for the auction. Why don't you go ahead and pick something out? Something under $20. Whatever you think would sell.

Me: Thank you so much!

I feel like a jerk and an idiot for being so off-base on this. Now, of course, it makes sense. These people know who I am. They know the school, they know the kids. Their kids, or grandkids, or neighbors, or all of the above, go there. Unlike Corporate, they actually care whether or not Old Forge kids have what they need. Furthermore, being businesspeople, they hope that being generous to the local school will bring them much-needed business that they might not otherwise get. Corporate knows it already has our business and doesn't need to work for it.

It's not like I needed another reason to hate megastores. I am firmly in the bleeding-heart-liberal camp of people who avoid Wal-Mart like the plague that it is (except, of course, when I'm begging for auction donations). I understand that if I don't support local businesses then they will fail, irrevocably changing the landscape of the small town in which I live. I know I should buy lumber at the local mill instead of Home Depot, books at the independent bookseller instead of Barnes & Noble, toys at the little store downtown instead of Toys R Us. And most of the time I do.

But I won't lie. To me, shopping at Target is one of life's little pleasures, right in there with pedicures and discovering that my husband has folded all the laundry. The convenience of one-click buying at Amazon is as seductive to me as the apple was to Eve. Unfortunately, the consequences are proving to be as dire. I love Quizno's subs. But you know what? I don't want to live in a world where I have to get my subs at Quizno's because they've driven everyone else out of business. And there's the rub.

As I was thinking about these things earlier today, my favorite independent toy store posted a link on their facebook page to the 3/50 Project. I was immediately smitten with their attitude, the upshot of which is that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You don't have to swear never to one-click preorder the latest Harry Potter from Amazon ever again. You can have a Quizno's veggie sub with no onions and extra guacamole. You can even, dare I say, browse through Target's spring collection. Just, please, promise to support the local guys too. Every month, spend at least $50 among at least 3 local independent businesses. Pick up the potting soil you need at the local store instead of the megastore. Go out for dinner at a non-chain restaurant. Get your morning coffee and bagel somewhere other than Starbucks one day. Done. Get it? So simple! So easy! So effective.

Because, to quote Judy Collins, "God help me if I ever have to shop at Wal-Mart because nothing else is left."