Kids were stressed out and also preferred to avoid intellectual risks. “They’ll take an easier assignment that will guarantee the A.”
I relate to this so much. I found myself doing this often in high school so I could get a "good grade" and get into a "good school."
The claim here is that we should do unpleasant and unnecessary things to children now in order to prepare them for the fact that just such things will be done to them later.
THIS
But grading for learning is, to paraphrase a 1960’s-era slogan, rather like bombing for peace.
Precisely.
Even a well-meaning teacher may produce a roomful of children who are so busy monitoring their own reading skills that they’re no longer excited by the stories they’re reading.
A child who hates reading has been robbed. Sadly, I see this often.
If nourishing their desire to learn is a primary goal for us, then grading is problematic by its very nature.
I think this is where I lose parents sometimes in my efforts to promote Kohn's work and progressive practices. Many parents have told me, in so many words, that the point of education is for their kid to get a good job. I would argue that the purpose of the American public school system is not to nourish a desire for learning, but to indoctrinate citizens into the culture and prepare them for a life of contributing to the American economy.
Grades create a preference for the easiest possible task. Impress upon students that what they’re doing will count toward their grade, and their response will likely be to avoid taking any unnecessary intellectual risks. They’ll choose a shorter book, or a project on a familiar topic, in order to minimize the chance of doing poorly — not because they’re “unmotivated” but because they’re rational. They’re responding to adults who, by telling them the goal is to get a good mark, have sent the message that success matters more than learning. * Grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking. They may skim books for what they’ll “need to know.” They’re less likely to wonder, say, “How can we be sure that’s true?” than to ask “Is this going to be on the test?”
It's interesting to think about the connections between this mentality and the problems we're currently facing as a nation- what happened/is happening in Afghanistan, the way tax dollars are getting spent and the national debt, climate change, the erosion of democracy.