I give a D to people lathered about Surrey and Maple Ridge districts' dropping of letter grades from elementary school report cards.
What does my D mean? Smarten up, buster.
At what? And how? Never mind, just smarten up.
Like my D, letter grades are oversimplifications. They serve to sort kids into strata of worthiness - and that's not good, especially in elementary schools.
Letter grades are not "clear," as some claim; rather, they are blunt and inaccurate. They can't measure an "a-ha" learning moment or suggest interventions.
Parents need more than symbols that actually discourage meaningful discussion of their child's progress.
Omitting letter grades doesn't decrease information to parents, it increases it. Parent conferences, exemplars of student work or links to pictures or videos give parents more relevant information.
These methods aren't as simple as the C+ - and that means more work for parents - but it gives a more pertinent and nuanced picture of a child's progress. It helps parents help, too, past merely exhorting their kid to chase A's.
And contrary to popular belief, dumping letter grades is not a labour-saver for teachers. Parent conferences are much more demanding of teacher time. Letter grades are easier to compile, require less substantiation and involve less conferencing time - they're a shortcut.
But the trouble is, letter grades are a familiar currency, so we panic when someone wants to try more meaningful approaches.
And many think we need more, not less competition. "They've got to prepare for the real world."
A happy childhood is the best preparation for the real world. Surely we can let our children be inquisitive learners, at least until Grade 8, before whipping them towards A's?
"It's not fair," one exasperated Surrey mom was quoted as saying. "My [Grade 4] son wanted to go for all A's next report card."
Is chasing A's a worthy goal for a nine-year-old? It shouldn't be - enjoying learning should be.
The aggregate of human knowledge doubles every three years. Using letter grades to measure mastery of a shrinking portion of that information is increasingly futile. We should focus on the important things our kids learn at school.
As D math student, Albert Einstein observed: "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that is counted, counts."
