Report Cards: A Measurement of Compliance or of Learning?

    My 7-year-old daughter brought home her report card last week. "Look, Mom, they're all in the nineties!" She was proud and excited to share her first report card of her second grade year with the rest of the family. I, too, shared her excitement upon seeing A's or percents that equated to an A in each of her core subjects. But I continued to probe her. I wanted to know what her understanding of "A" means, so I continued, "I'm so proud of you, Joc, but what does a 95% in math mean?" She responded, "It means I got an A and I was pretty close to a 100." And that was that. She was satisfied. Jocelyn is the first born and a total Type A kid. To further clarify, today is Sunday and this morning the first words out of her mouth when she came into my bedroom, in a panic, were, "Mom, where's my school iPad? I need to get my green dot!" It was not the most peaceful way I've awoken on a Sunday morning, but most parents know that "peaceful" isn't the word we often choose to describe our slumber. Anyways, by "green dot" she was referring to Reflex Math, a program used to help kids become fluent with their basic math facts. Here's the bottom line: Jocelyn wants to get all of her work done. She wants to get all "A's" on the left side of her report card and all "Satisfactories" in her behavioral expectations on the right side. She cries when misses school due to illness or appointments. She aims to please. She aims for A's. A parent's dream, right?

    But after seeing her satisfaction with a 95% and not really addressing or worrying about that other 5% of whatever math skills that she missed or did not show mastery in, I ponder the question, "What if she, like many other learners, are just learning, to comply?" She knows she made her teachers proud and her parents happy; therefore, she is content and happy.

    Don't get me wrong, I am totally thankful that I do not have to battle my oldest two kids to get them up on school mornings or beg and bribe them to do their school work. They really do enjoy the learning process. But we all know not every kid is like this. In fact, I very much worry about my third child's compliance skills. In her first three years of life, my husband and I witnessed the rage she brings when she does not get her way. She simply will not budge. She fights back if she doesn't agree with doing something. Let's just say, we won't be shocked if she does not wake up on the weekend with a strong desire to memorize math facts, especially if she doesn't see the point in it. These are the kinds of kids we see every day as teachers. So another question that comes to my mind is, "What happens when learners don't care about complying or getting bad grades?"

    So that's it, then, they simply don't want to learn. They don't care. They don't want to try. We can't hold anything over their heads if they choose not to do the work, not to study, not to participate, not to complete classwork. And as a teacher, I certainly cannot just shove math into their brains. So how do we teach relunctant, non-compliant learners?

    My bolded questions are certainly loaded and I'm not afraid to admit that I don't know the answers, or perhaps I just don't like the answers. But here is one statement that I truly believe after seeing years and years of kids not caring about their education: Our current educational system, grading included, does not work for every learner. It's important that I add those last 3 words because, on the bright side, we have seen kids thrive at school and love school. And our system rewards those kids with beautiful marks on a report card that gets posted to Mom and Dad's Facebook pages and on the refrigerator for all to see. But on the dark side, we have seen so many kids unmotivated, angry, and most times truly lost while they sit in our classrooms counting down the minutes and years until they are out.

    As we re-imagine and navigate the many changes our post-covid world has thrown at us, let's also rethink our current K-12 educational system. How can we better ignite curiosity, passion, and motivation in today's learners? Should we be satisfied with a piece of paper that has "Satisfactories" and "A's" on it or could our learners prove themselves in other innovative ways that might not just get thrown away after a few weeks? Is there a better way to get those disengaged learners to care about their education when report cards and failing grades don't do the trick? We simply cannot keep letting these kids slip through the crack and go through life unengaged and uncaring, because then we fail along with them. And as for the learners who love to comply, earn "good" grades, keep their teachers, their parents, and their peers happy, let's challenge them beyond compliance and encourage them to never be satisfied. A learner in today's world needs to evoke their own curiosity, to evolve with our ever-changing world, to discover what they want out of their education and, ultimately, to be proud of the way they spend each minute, each year, in their one precious life.