In “The Schools Our Children Deserve,” author Alfie Kohn, a former teacher turned author of seven landmark books on education, cites numerous (current) studies regarding competition, grades, and tests. Kohn makes the following points: Grades and Tests In “The Schools Our Children Deserve,” author Alfie Kohn, a former teacher turned author of seven landmark books on education, cites numerous (current) studies regarding competition, grades, and tests. Kohn makes the following points:
-
On Competition:
- Competition assumes that children need to be motivated to work, yet educators often don’t realize that no amount of external motivation can make up for a lack of internal motivation.
- External motivation often leads to children who care more about the reward than they do about what they must do or learn to get the reward.
- Competitive learning often causes students to be less interested in particular subjects and even to dislike school.
-
On Grades:
- Grades are largely subjective. Research shows that any assignment may get two different grades by equally qualified teachers and two different grades by the same teacher who reads it at two different times.
- Students focused on grades are not likely to challenge themselves like students not concerned about grades.
- Grades do increase temporary retention of facts, but studies show that grades negatively impact conceptual understanding and long term fact recall.
- Research shows that grades negatively impact creativity. On the other hand, research also demonstrates that students not focused on grades tend to have a healthy attitude toward failure – when they do something incorrectly, they figure it out and, with a positive attitude, correct their mistakes.
- Research shows that children taught with hands-on interactive learning activities test equally well in knowing facts.
-
On Standardized Tests
- Teachers and administrators often adjust what they teach to bolster scores. However, the tests emphasize relatively unimportant knowledge so “teaching to the test” destroys quality education.
- Because tests are often multiple-choice, student may infer that there’s a right answer for all questions; thus, “someone else already knows the answer to all these questions, so original interpretations are not expected.”
- Because tests place a premium on remembering facts, students may think that facts are all that really matters.
- Research demonstrates that students concerned about succeeding on exams are more likely to think in a “surface-level” way. Their superficial thinking may last a lifetime.
- Because the tests are timed, students may be encouraged to see intelligence as a function of how quickly people can do things, which isn’t very realistic.