I remember being in first grade and getting a 2 out of 10 in a dictation. It was my first and I proudly gave the test report to my mother. My mother then had to gently explain to me that the score was not exactly a great score. Needless to say, I went on to improve my scores but this was my first understanding of the mechanics of education.
What I needed to know was what was expected of me and what I needed to improve. This is the other kind of reporting: a qualitative feedback. This feedback is directly related to the task and informs the child about the areas of strength and areas where improvement is needed.
The first thing about a qualitative feedback is to make the expectations clear to a child. This means that the criteria have to be defined with levels of achievement. In one task, let’s say creative writing – there can be several criteria. For example: imagination, structure and use of language. So a child may do well in one criterion and not so well in another. This itself gives a specific feedback.
Mostly grades are given in a qualitative report. But the human tendency is to then translate an ‘A’ grade into more than 90 % and so on. This brings a hierarchy back amongst the children. As a result of marks, children have a tendency to become competitive with each other. In the absence of marks and competition, I have noticed children are more cooperative.
The other point is who evaluates? Why should a child not have a say in what he or she has learnt? This articulation of one’s own learning is a very complex intellectual skill. Young children in our school put a tick mark against visual symbols that express different levels of achievement in a task. This makes the child more reflective. It also makes a report card more participatory and less judgmental.
The other aspect of reporting is the manner in which we give the reports to children. Rather than this being the dreaded moment, it should be the most exciting moment. What ruins a report card is when someone tells a child ‘Can do better.’ How unfulfilling this is! All of us can always do better. Come to think of it, the teacher could have done better!
The last point is about repeating a class. A reader asked me this question via mail some time ago. Repeating a class is a good solution when a child is either under age, was irregular due to some disturbance or needs to strengthen basic concepts before moving on. The problem is that it can be perceived as a punishment by a child or can be linked to failure. For a child, if his friends move on to another class, it can be very disturbing and can be counter-productive. In that case, it may be better to change the school so that the child’s self-esteem is not hurt.
Ideally, it is better to put a system into place where the child will come forward and express his or her own learning to the parents and class. This can be done by examples of work selected by the student in a kind of portfolio and should make a report card redundant!
The above article was published in the Ahmedabad Mirror on 27/4/2010.
Tue, Apr 27, 2010
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