Translator: Christopher Phillips Reviewer: Nada Qanbar
Like many Americans,
when I read that American high school students
are lagging behind students in 20 other countries
in reading, math, and science,
I was bothered.
With all the great opportunities that we have in this country,
it bothered me to think that our students are falling so far behind.
Our teachers are fabulous in America.
We have very dedicated people who work very, very hard.
Our students are hardworking as well.
We have some wonderful students
who are eager to learn and come to class every day,
wanting to learn more with great aspirations.
At the same time, I feel the parents are very supportive.
Some of the reports that came out said,
"Oh, America doesn't have supportive parents,"
but I've seen the opposite.
I've seen very, very supportive parents
who want the best education for their children.
And when they're looking for new homes,
they go out to find the best school district,
and they'll inquire of a real estate agent,
"Where is the best school district?" or, "What schools are best?"
And at the same time,
our schools are like palaces compared to other countries.
We have cafeterias in our schools. We have gymnasiums.
We have auditoriums like this one in our schools.
Some of our schools, about half, have football fields
and then separate baseball fields.
Compared to other countries, we have amazing schools.
So then, what's wrong with American education?
Where are we going wrong?
What is the elephant in the classroom?
I gave this question a lot of thought,
and I realized that what's wrong with American education
is our grading system
and something that I would call "anti-teaching" or even "gotcha grading,"
where we make our teachers go out and try to minimize students
so that they can get a nice distribution of grades for their students.
You know that teacher who gave you a surprise quiz
when you least expected it?
You know that teacher who announced to the class
there are going to be trick questions on the test?
You know the teacher who put questions on tests that weren't even in the class
or in the textbook?
Or the teacher that barely taught the material
such that the students had to all go out and get tutors?
And you had a whole classroom filled with students
who were all on the side getting tutored in the subject
so that they could get a decent grade in that subject.
And you know that teacher who gave you a B+
on your first essay paper that semester?
And you said to yourself,
"I'm going to work so hard I'm going to get an A in that course."
And then you handed in that next paper, and you got that B+ again.
And no matter what you did in that course -
you could all gone out, and hired a Nobel Prize winner -
you knew you were still getting a B+ in that course
because you knew that that teacher had you pegged as the B+ person.
These are no accident.
These are all examples
of what I would call "anti-teaching" and "gotcha grading."
I first came upon this realization when I was teaching college,
and I had just finished a wonderful semester,
the kind of semester that you feel is magical as a teacher.
The students worked hard.
In order to get into my class,
they had to pass a number of prerequisites.
And so these were all the kids who did well in the prerequisites
and came into my class,
and I was excited to be teaching them, and they were excited to be there.
There were tests, there were quizzes, there were lots of papers -
it was a very rigorous curriculum.
And at the end of the semester,
I was so excited when I had to grade these students
because the majority of them had earned As,
and there were some Bs in the class.
And I thought, "Wow, I'm a good teacher, and they're good students,
and we were all happy together."
Well, a few days later, I ran into my department chair in the hall,
and he said, "You know, I want to talk to you about your grades."
And I naively said, "Yeah, isn't it fantastic?
My students did so well. They worked so hard.
We had great class discussions.
It was just an amazing semester."
And he said, "Yeah, that's what I want to talk to you about."
He said, "You can't have grades like this next semester.
You've already given these grades to your students, so I can't change them.
But next semester,
I want your grades to reflect the grades of the rest of the department."
Here were the grades of the rest of the department.
He said, "Give one-third Cs, one-third Bs, and one-third As."
And he said, "We hold to that pretty strictly here
as some universities do that."
Princeton just changed their grading system,
I think, this past month,
but many schools hold very strictly to the one-third, one-third, one-third.
And I said, "But wait,
what if my students really worked hard, and they earned those As?
It wasn't, like, I randomly gave As to make them happy.
They earned them - their paper averages, their test averages,
their quiz averages were As."
And I said,
"Also because they had to take prerequisites to get into the class,
these were all solid A students coming into my class.
It wasn't like I could just randomly give Cs,"
and he said, "Well, you're going to have to throw the students a little bit."
And I said, "What does that mean?"
And he said, "Well, give some surprise quizzes next semester,
maybe give some tests with trick questions on them,
or maybe create a curve -
announce to the class you're going to curve their grades -
so that kids who you'd normally give a B to might get a C now,
and the kids with the A- might get the Bs,
and the kids with A+ will get the As.
And that way,
you'll be able to do one-third As and one-third Bs and one-third Cs."
Well, that hurt. I didn't like that.
I always felt like if you earn something, you should get what you earned.
But he said I should go home and think about it.
I said, "Well, why are we doing this exactly?"
And he said, "Grade inflation. We have to worry about grade inflation."
Which made no sense to me either
because grade inflation is not monetary inflation,
and nothing would happen if people who earned As actually got As,
but I did say I would go home and think about it.
And he said, "I want you to grade more like your colleagues
in the next semester."
Next semester came along,
and on the first day, I walked into my new classroom,
and I saw 24 students with their eyes shining and bright
and eager to learn,
and I wanted to claim that magic back.
I loved teaching; I loved reaching the students;
I loved that connection.
And I said, "I'm going to reach these students,"
but then there was this burden suddenly.
I had to give out of the 24 students - 8 of them had to get Cs,
and I looked around the room,
and I found myself studying the students,
saying, "Hmm, who can I dump the Cs onto?"
Well, we went around the room, introducing ourselves,
and there was a girl in the back row who seemed very shy and quiet,
and she didn't make any eye contact with me,
and I thought to myself, "Aha, there's a C.
She's not going to give me any flack for that C.
I can get away with giving her a C."
And just then, a boy walked into the classroom
and apologized profusely saying,
"I'm sorry.
I had a class at the other end of the campus,
and it took me a long time to get here.
I'm going to try hard to get here on time,
but I can't guarantee it, and I'm really sorry."
And I kind of smiled inside, a very wicked smile, saying,
"Aha, there goes another C,
especially if I teach a lot of material in the first five minutes of class,
I can really catch him."
Well, that night, I went home,
and said, "You know what?
That magic of teaching, of reaching one-on-one with a student,
that's missing.
What happened?"
And suddenly, I felt like it was me against the students,
or I was against the students,
and I had to find my eight Cs in the class before I can have some peace,
and then I'd have to find eight Bs in the class,
and that was going to be my mission.
It had nothing to do with teaching this class.
It had to do with finding the kids I could dump the Cs and the Bs on.
And I said that's not the kind of teacher I wanted to be.
That's not the person I want to be.
That's not what teaching really should be.
And so, I resolved that night
that I'm not going to play the anti-teaching game -
I'm going to give my students the grades that they earned.
I knew that that would mean that at the end of the semester,
I would probably have to say goodbye to that university,
but I wanted to be the teacher that I wanted to be.
My solution to this problem, because it's prevalent,
is to end grading altogether.
I would replace it with mastery-based learning
where every teacher gets freed to really teach all the students
and not to booby-trap some of the most vulnerable students
in the classroom.
Only when we allow teachers
to fully try to teach every single kid in the classroom,
will America rise to the level at the top where it belongs.
Thank you.
(Applause)