Validation
I’ve never been the type of student who considers grades to be everything. Like most people, I’m happy when I get a good grade, and disappointed when I get a bad grade. It’s interesting that those are reactions I always seem to have despite genuinely believing grades are not a measure of intelligence — and even if you were to get held back, for example, it doesn’t mean you aren’t smart.
Operant conditioning is a type of shaping where one’s behaviour is controlled by rewards or consequences. A skinner box, or an operant conditioning chamber is basically a box that a small animal (typically a rat) is kept in. While in this box, the rat learns to push a specific lever to get food pellets, or a different specific lever to avoid being electrocuted by the box. When I think of they way grades are meant to affect us, this is what I think of.
The idea is, that you study for a test and work hard, and you get a 100. That is supposed to teach you that next time you have a test, you should repeat the actions you took to get a 100. Or, in other cases, you don’t study, you wing it, and you get a 60 on the test. Then you decide that next time you’ll do the opposite of what you did prior to this test, in order to avoid getting a 60.
I hate this idea.
So for example, you take a math test, and you get an 80. And you’re unhappy with this grade. But, what is the number 80 going to tell you? Sure, you could just look at the answers you got wrong, see your mistakes and try to study what you missed. But one of the reasons why a class with grade abatement makes a situation like this better is you can look at specific traits and break down what you have and what you lack. (This is metacognition.) Maybe while studying for the math test you were very assiduous. You were dealing with some stuff outside of school that was bothering you, but you worked hard and didn’t let it stop you from studying. You can recognize this, and it might even make you feel a little better about the grade you got. But maybe you weren’t very organized. And disorganization can make everything else much harder and more confusing.
Being able to recognize specific areas where you lack some skill, and other areas where you do well, will help you improve much more than just seeing a high or low number.
That being said, getting a sticker for completing a homework assignment or getting a piece of paper that says you got honor roll aren’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact they’re kind of nice. I myself just got one of these papers, and it was a happy surprise, as I haven’t made honor roll since middle school.
But going back to one of my previous points, grades are not a proper measure of intelligence. Some people are math smart, some are history smart, and some people are science smart. Some people are smart in something that isn’t even school related at all. These people may just come to the conclusion that they’re just an unintelligent person. This isn’t the case, of course, but because most of their life has been spent in school, they may not have gotten a chance to try what they’re truly smart in.
Again, I personally don’t make a huge deal out of grades. Last year, I did okay. This year I’m doing pretty good. Better than I usually do actually. The only class I’ve managed to get a grade below 80 in so far is gym. Part of it has to do with the fact that most of my classes aren’t too heavy on homework. It also has to do with the fact that I have much better teachers in Physics, English 10, and Geometry than I did in Earth Science, English 9, and Algebra. So I guess I got lucky.
Then again, it’s all really about perspective. One student’s 100 is another student’s 70. I’m sure if someone else had my grade’s they’d be throwing a party instead of shrugging and saying “Hey, that’s cool.” And I’m positive someone else would have a mental breakdown at the sight of any number below 90.
While I’m a strong believer that a system like grade abatement would be helpful to our success in all classes, I still can’t let go of the want for a number based validation of my skills. I check the parent portal every time I use a computer throughout the school day. I remember in the first quarter when I was still getting a hang of this class, I really wanted my first grade abatement profile to be posted so I could know how I was doing in the class. What I failed to see was I didn’t need a grade posted online to do that. I could figure it out myself. By simply being metacognitive and taking a look at the profiles, and annotating, and internalizing what I read, I could put myself on that scale. I could see what I had and what I lacked. I could validate myself.
I had a lot of doubts about how I was doing at that time. I still do doubt myself sometimes. But I think it’s fair to say now that I’ve improved this year a lot, and I’m doing well in this, and my other classes. And I no longer feel guilty for saying that.
Just like constructive criticism, validation is important. How we get it maybe should be viewed differently. When refreshing Campus Portal once an hour doesn’t show any new numbers, take a look at your work and yourself — not your grades. That doesn’t mean ignore your mistakes. Instead of stressing over them, think about them. Maybe you only studied some of the chapters in your textbook before a test, but not all of them. Instead of saying next time you’ll go over all the work, ask yourself, why you didn’t go over all the work to begin with? When you understand how you learn and why you do it that way, you’ll see a genuine improvement. Recognize the improvement, and don’t stop there. Keep going. Even if your GPA is a 100 (which is impossible, but still), there’s always more ways to improve, so don’t stop there.
