The Secrets to Good Grades

Remember how when we were in school the entire focus of our lives seemed to be centered around getting good grades? I can hear Mom saying, "If you don't do your homework, you won't get good grades, and without good grades you won't get into college and you'll turn out to be a bum. Don't expect me to support you the rest of your life." "But, Mom, I'm only in the first grade!" That didn't seem to matter. The warning was given each evening after supper during the school year, including holidays when the teacher didn't give us homework. And it wasn't given just in my home. Every kid in the neighborhood received the same lecture. It was as if all moms got together and conspired against their offspring. Chances are that your mom was part of the conspiracy, too. Times haven't changed much. Kids are still given the same lecture. The only difference is you and I are the parents. It seems a right of passage. A legacy that's up there with "You have it easy today. When I was growing up I had to walk one hundred miles to school regardless of the weather and had to carry twenty textbooks." What are grades all about anyway? This may seem to be a rhetorical question since you and I have been on the receiving end of grades for all of our school days. Who else knows more about grades than we? We'd work hard and sometimes got good grades. At times we'd work hard and wouldn't get good grades. Of course, there were those rare but golden moments when we didn't work hard and got good grades. If only those moments weren't so rare, I could have gotten into Harvard.... Grades are subjective. Your child receives a final grade based upon the teacher's assessment of your child's progress during the school year. Assessments are made by the teacher using various techniques including dreaded tests, surprise quizzes, and daylong exams. Homework is another way a teacher assesses your child's progress, as are class observations and class participation. Although your child's final grade is a clear, emphatic symbol of alleged achievement, the method used by the teacher to arrive at the grade is the result of a less-than-scientific evaluation. I purposely use the term alleged whenever I mention grades and achievement in the same breath. I'm not convinced that your child's final grade is any more a symbol of achievement than a salesperson selling me a new car at cost. After spending twelve years on a typical board of education, I realize that grades are not really the indicator of performance or a predictor of future achievement, as my mom and probably yours thought. When you look behind the scenes as I've done, you find an imperfect world that supports some of those excuses we used to justify our less-than-stellar performance in school. "Mom, the teacher doesn't like me. That's why I got a D." "Johnny's mom went to school with the teacher. That's why he gets good marks." "The teacher is just getting even because you always complain to the principal about him." And the mother of all excuses, "The teacher never taught us what was on the test." Yes, we've all experienced this panic. I'd study like there was no tomorrow and even recruited Mom as a study partner. It was like getting psyched for the Super Bowl. Then the moment of truth was at hand. I peered down at the big exam confident I had this one bagged. Then reality hit. Nothing, I mean nothing I studied was on the test. Another D was coming and there was nothing I could do. At the end of every marking period, your child's teacher has to summarize each child's performance into a single grade. This isn't easy to do. Teachers realize so much is riding on the decision. A low grade could have Mom knocking down the principal's door, forcing the teacher to support her claim. Giving too many low grades brings the teacher's performance to the attenKeogh, James is the author of 'The Secrets to Good Grades' with ISBN 9780449003107 and ISBN 0449003108.