At the beginning of this school year, when my 8th-grade son’s school district switched to a new parent information system, I inadvertently signed up for regular alerts instead of just the weekly summary email. So nearly every day I get an email informing me that my 8th-grade son’s test has been graded. Or that an assignment is due. Or that the teacher extended the due date for an assignment. I never open these messages, although I skim the subject lines and will sometimes mention to my son, “Your Spanish quiz was graded,” to which he inevitably replies, “I know, Dad, you don’t have to tell me.” Yet, I haven’t unsubscribed from these emails either. Perhaps I’m afraid of what will happen if I take away the power that comes with knowing nearly everything that my son has accomplished, or hasn’t, each day.
Eight years ago, when my older son was in 6th grade, and I was still the superintendent of the district where my kids were enrolled, I had a conversation with a mom on the sidelines of a soccer game about how goofy, sweet, smelly, and clueless our preteen boys were. I told her that I think middle school should be all about experiences rather than academics and suggested that maybe we should send our kids to the woods for a year or have them work on a farm or do major community service projects to build their executive functioning skills. She laughed and then asked me how often I checked his grades and assignments on the parent information system. Never, I replied. I didn’t feel the need to know what was going on every day unless there was a problem. My job was to create a safe, loving, stable environment for my kids, with clear standards and expectations, and his job was to do the right thing. Or, as I say to my kids every day when they leave the house, “work hard, have fun, be a good kid.”
The mom looked at me like I was speaking another language. I was, after all, the superintendent in a county where many parents obsess over every aspect of their kid’s achievement. She told me that she checked the system every day and then sat down with her son to plan out exactly when he would do every assignment and make up every bad grade. “Great,” I told her, “I’m glad the system is working for you and that your son is doing well in school.” And we went back to the game.
A question of priorities
Later in my son’s 6th-grade year, his science teacher reached out because my son had been missing assignments and had failed a few tests. When I went in to talk to his instructional team, the teachers went through everything they do to help students learn how to organize themselves. While they acknowledged that academics weren’t the most important thing in 6th grade, my son was appearing to fall a little too far behind. I shared that I appreciated the team asking us to meet and that we’d be sure to talk to him about what was happening. And then the science teacher (who was also the team leader) said to me, with a bit of an edge in her voice, “You know, everything I just told you is in the online system.” When I told her that I don’t check it, she looked at me incredulously. Nearly every other parent in our school logged in regularly, so the cognitive dissonance of the superintendent of schools claiming that frequent check-ins didn’t jibe with his parenting style was a little too much for her to bear. And I came to understand that the teachers had internalized the idea that their kids’ academic achievement was parents’ top priority.
I believe that leaders have a responsibility to question what the overall experience of school is teaching students about the purpose of education.
Academic achievement is surely important to most parents and the public. Success in life is directly related to it, but not necessarily dependent on it. Lacking the ability to read, write, and do arithmetic at functional levels most definitely leads to fewer opportunities in life, but, beyond that, the relationship between academic achievement and ultimate success and happiness is less clear. For most people, a certain degree of academic achievement is necessary, but it’s not sufficient, and most schools offer some programming that goes beyond academic goals. For example, recognizing that students need to know how to self-regulate and resolve conflict, more schools have embraced social-emotional learning in recent years. More and more, career exploration and pathways are becoming part of the school day. And while the arts, athletics, and community service aren’t generally central to school curricula, they have strong support, too. But it’s not enough just to add more programs that focus on life beyond academics. I believe that leaders have a responsibility to question what the overall experience of school is teaching students about the purpose of education.
A focus on experience
In a piece recently published on the Kappan website, the researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang argues that “Our schools tend to be preoccupied with what kids know and can do. However, it seems to be how kids think and feel — their dispositions of mind and heart — that have the strongest effects on their learning, civic engagement, personal well-being, and even brain development.” Findings from research in neuroscience suggest that a child’s experience of learning is essential to how much they learn, or the knowledge and skills they acquire. If a young person is being bombarded every day with emails informing them of their current grade point average, or reminding them to make up or turn in an assignment, their experience is telling them that the most important thing about school is whether they completed certain tasks or acquired certain skills.
What if, instead of focusing so much on checking off academic tasks, students spent time with peers and their teachers discussing why a particular item is important to their understanding of our complex world and their place in it? Perhaps, instead of focusing on finishing tasks, they could spend more time on the process of learning by reviewing and discussing an exemplar and designing how they’re going to approach the task, or by working with peers to review and refine each other’s work. When the final grade is emailed to the student and parent, they should have a deep understanding of how they achieved their grade, and the experience of learning will surely be more worthwhile than the actual grade itself.
I’m sure that many teachers use some of these techniques. But in too many schools these days, I see an obsession with the rigor and volume of the academic work students must complete, with less attention paid to the quality of their experience in school. A lot of work means more scores, and the more scores and grades, the easier it is to rank and sort (which, for some, seems to be the driving purpose of K-12 education). However, school and district leaders have a responsibility to ensure not only that young people meet college and career standards, but also that they thrive as whole people. And if the purpose of public education is to develop healthy, confident, engaged individuals and citizens, as well as to prepare future workers, then leaders must think more expansively about what students are asked to do in school, both on their own and as part of a larger community.
It matters how students feel at school, how they interact with their peers, and how they relate to their teachers.
Positive relationships are essential to human development. But we don’t just relate to other people — we also have relationships with the institutions that shape our lives, the products we use, and even the food we consume. For example, some of us might joke about our unhealthy relationship with chocolate or, in my case, cheese. And while no one (I hope) actually talks to a slice of chocolate cake, all of us have an emotional experience as we eat it: anticipation, perhaps some guilt, the pleasure of tasting it, and maybe the sinking feeling of having overindulged.
In most ways, alas, attending school is nothing like eating chocolate cake. But it is similar in the sense that every part of the experience — from getting onto the bus to walking into the building, seeing friends, sitting down in class, going to the lunchroom, returning to class, and leaving for the day — triggers emotional responses, ranging from excitement to dread, boredom, hope, stress, and comfort. And we cannot separate these emotional experiences from whatever else we hope to accomplish in K-12 education. It matters how students feel at school, how they interact with their peers, and how they relate to their teachers.
During the last quarter of 6th grade, and for all of 7th grade, my youngest son was in remote school. While the experience was largely awful, 7th grade was probably the best one for him to have missed because he still gets to have one more year as a goofy middle school boy before the pressures of high school. And the online grade reporting system actually helped us manage his experience last year. We could use the information to help him adjust and correct and organize. It was the right tool at the right time. When it comes down to it, the online grade reporting system can be an effective tool used in the right context. But if the only tool you have is a hammer . . . well, you know the rest.
Reference
Immordino-Yang, M.H. (2022, March 3). Purpose, deep thinking, and relationships drive brain development. Phi Delta Kappan.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joshua P. Starr
Joshua P. Starr is the managing partner at the International Center for Leadership in Education, a division of HMH, based in Boston, MA. He is the author of Equity-based Leadership: Leveraging Complexity to Transform School Systems.
