Do Good Grades Mean Your Child is Getting a “Good Education?”
We all had our “marks” in school on a report card. I recently saw my dad’s second grade report card. I was shocked his grades weren’t “up to par.” He then told me that as a second grade boy he was more concerned about playing. Dad went on to become a teacher, a leader in his church, and a writer. Did his second grade scores accurately reflect what he was learning at the time or truly capable of? I was an honor roll child, feeling like I just knew everything there was to know but not motivated to learn more on my own without those marks and rewards.
When you have a teacher-classroom scenario something HAS to be communicated to the parent who is not there so the parent knows how the child is doing. After all, the parent is not there at school. Report cards, which have been around for generations, usually have a section for academics and behavior as well as attendance. They’ve been the go-to method for that communication for decades.
Are report cards doing well at communicating if your child is getting a good education?
Parents may meet the teacher once or twice in a school year, if at all. As the child gets older or siblings start going to school, it can be quite a bit for busy parents to keep up with—truly knowing the teacher, the standards expected and how the child is doing. This is one reason I favor homeschooling: it keeps parents in the know about what their children are learning and how they are doing. (Now, before you get upset, please remember that I worked in schools for 12 years. I also continue to meet with parents on a regular basis through my tutoring. I have an awareness of how schools and families are currently functioning. You might be one of the lucky ones who is having a positive experience each and every year).
Homeschoolers in some states report grades to their state, but the parent obviously can see how the child is doing with the material that is being taught since the parent is RIGHT THERE; it’s a completely different feel. For my friends who have their children in a public or private school, the grades are sent home to communicate to you. Are they doing just that? How do you tell how much your child has learned? Is it from interactions and conversations with your child or a report card grade? Have you ever been MISLEAD by a report card grade? Comment below!
On a side note, how much is the grade communicating to your child?
“I really know my stuff!”
“No matter what I do, I can never make a good grade.”
*Remember, the emphasis put on report cards and grades does not just communicate to parents, but also to the child. Different children will have different experiences—even from year to year and teacher to teacher.
WHAT DETERMINES A GRADE AVERAGE?
Do you realize even from your own experiences how many variables go into a grade average? Let’s think for a moment:
—Are daily assignments graded?
—Is homework graded?
—Did the teacher “grade on the curve?”
—Are tests and quizzes counted as being worth more?
—Is the teacher grading about 4 assignments per grading period or 15?
MOST PARENTS DO NOT KNOW THESE ANSWERS. MANY DON’T EVEN KNOW TO ASK.
All of these questions matter! There will be different answers for each and every teacher and grade level out there. Many parents I speak with have not thought to ask these questions since they’ve not been in the teacher’s role before.
Is your child’s teacher taking the approach of helping your child learn as much as possible and feel like they are being successful? Or, is your child’s teacher grading work, and entering it in a grade book and moving on—no matter how well your child performed or not? (Sadly, as a tutor, I see the latter far too often.) If that is the case, friend, what are you doing about your child’s education?
I’ve known many smart students make failing grades simply because they did not like the class, the teacher, the work, or school in general. Have you known a child like that?
When you send your children away to school, there must be some level of communication. It can come in various forms. Usually, at bare minimum, the communication happens when report cards come out—much later when it’s harder to “do something about it.” Here are some forms of communication a parent might have with a teacher:
—emails, notes, or text messages
—phone calls
—parent/teacher conferences
—in-person interactions (volunteering in the classroom or at school events)
—graded papers sent home ( you can see why your child missed a problem or what was expected)
—apps (for behavior and homework tracking)
Will you know from the above forms of communication if your child is getting a “good education?”
Well, that really depends on your definition of a good education. You should work out on your own what that answer is. For me, a good education means that my child:
—wants to learn
—can change ideas and actions based on new information he learns
—asks questions to understand material
—can read to learn and grow in ideas
—has a solid understanding of daily math to function in the real world
—can write to express his ideas to others
—has a grasp of where we are in history and lessons learned from the past
—has a set of values to know what’s right and wrong morally (and can defend reasons for those)
—has a skill set that will enable him to support himself and his family
—has confidence to learn new things and work through problems with a can-do attitude
I could probably add to this list all day, but hopefully you get the idea.
Make your own list!
Then, REFLECT.
Reflect on your list. Re-vist your list.
Do your child’s grades convey whether or not your child is progressing in these areas and getting what you consider to be a “good education?”
If you aren’t ok with the answers you have after reflection, you may need to have a parent teacher conference. You may need to interview another parent who chooses a different form of schooling.
The purpose of this post is to simply get you asking questions and to consider.
For my family, we are finishing our 9th year of homeschooling. Prior to that, I was a teacher for 12 years in public and private schools. My children have never been enrolled in a traditional school. I enter grades in an online system with an “umbrella school” which keeps track of our records for reporting to the state. My children are not familiar with grades at this point. They know what they’ve read in a book or have seen on a tv show. We are learning the material not for the purpose of a particular grade, but to have mastery of the material. It changes the perspective.