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| "Discussion of a Bad Grade" (1950) by Sergiy Grigoriev |
The narrator reports that her son got a grade of "B+" on the family tree he created for school. The emotional experience of helping her son with the tree--who spent hours planning it--"knock[ed] something out of " her (179).
Do you find that the contrast between the effort, the value of the experience and the letter grade to be jarring?
Should he have been upset by this?
If the experience was valuable for the child, does the grade matter?
At what point in school, do students care more about grades than they do about the experience of learning?
I agree that Noah should be proud of the time he dedicated to learning his lineage, even though he received a B+. If he found this experience valuable, then his time was definitely not wasted. I believe students can become more focused on achieving a certain grade percentage than learning itself because of the emphasis placed on academic requirements, causing the value of learning to become overshadowed by numbers.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you fully on this one. Noah wanted a perfect grade, didn't get it, but still grew. It is sometimes hard to see growth when the outcome isn't exactly what we wanted. Hyper-focusing on grades and numbers is definitely a common struggle for students, have you ever found yourself struggling with that?
Delete(The anonymous response above was written and posted by me, I unfortunately did not input my name.)
DeleteNoah should not be upset about receiving a B+ because he gained something far more valuable: a deeper understanding of his family and background. At his age, grades matter much less than the experience of learning. Younger students often care about their grades because they are pressured by their parents. I would say many students shift more toward caring in high school. That is when academic pressure ramps up with college admissions, GPAs, and class rankings. Making students far more concerned with a letter grade than with genuine learning.
ReplyDeleteI do find the contrast pretty jarring, and I also think it's understandable that he would be upset about getting a B+ instead of an A. I know personally, when I work hard on something, I expect to be rewarded accordingly, so it can hurt when I feel like my effort was not recognized. In my opinion, I understand why someone would say that grade does not matter as long as the experience was valuable, but I personally disagree. While I think assignments should be valuable and teach students something, I also think that grades are extremely important in our current culture. For example, in high school, your GPA can be a major factor in determining the scholarships you receive for college, which can make a big difference for some. Students. I don't know about everyone else, but personally, I think students start caring more about grades than the experience of learning once they reach high school because of how their grades affect their GPA which in turn affects their opportunities for college.
ReplyDeleteI think that effort and numerical results are often unbalanced but that the value of the experience depends on the effort that one puts in. If the only goal is to make a certain grade it is most likely that that is all you will get. I have had this happen in classes where memorizing key phrases is sufficient to get the desired grade. I have also found that classes that push me change my world view and force me to look past the grade given and focus on the overall more valuable experience of learning. Sometimes blowing the 4.0 helps us realize that it's not just about the grade. That Noah was upset about it is normal and hopefully inspires him to do better but that is second to the experience that he gained
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