Entrance Slip (Oct 21)

        The initial paragraphs of the article resonated with me the most, because those statements were so accurate and relatable to my own experiences. Percentage and marks can have a significantly negative impact on kids' mental health. As a result of having percentages for evaluations, educational institutions promote an environment that is not conducive to authentic learning. How can educators effectively distinguish between an 86% and an 85%? What does that look like? How are we assessing the difference of 1% learning that the student has gone through? Why is 50% a pass, but 49% a fail? There are endless examples of why percentages and letter grades are not indicative of a student’s learning. Furtherly, this shows the incompetence of the marker when they deduct points for ridiculous reasons. There are many examples of teachers deducting marks for missing their names or handing in assignments late. However, these ideas severely miss the point of education and learning. Why should a student lose marks for writing their solutions in pen when they are writing a Mathematics test? As Alfie Kohn exclaims, the teacher often does this as an act of coercion.

When we break it down, the concept of percentages and marks seems misleading and unnecessary. As the article mentions, there were many instances in my schooling experience where students would ask “is this going to be on the midterm?”. This is the wrong reason to be or not to be learning class material. As educators, we want our students to be constantly learning, and not doing it to obtain a certain percentage on the upcoming test. Additionally, sharing grades between students was a very common practice among my social circles. It produced a heavily toxic environment for me as I always tried to compare my marks with my peers and to see if I did better or worse than them. Transitioning the “new" curriculum to a rubric-based assessment system is an important first step toward a more effective educational experience for the future generation. Students will place less emphasis and focus on trying to achieve a 90% for the sole sake of getting a good mark. Teachers must move away from standardized testing methods and assignments with typical algorithmic questions with one-dimensional answers. Providing the students with the creativity and freedom to explore the subject area will encourage growth of learning. This can be done through projects, presentations, group-based discussions, and interviews. Proving students with the agency to choose their own topics for projects will initiate interest and care into their chosen subject matter. Math education can consist of much more than just writing numbers on a page in a memorized algorithmic way to ultimately obtain a simple check mark.