In school, students strive for high scores and are made to feel successful if they achieve these scores. It is perhaps unfortunate that high scores are not an adequate measure of true learning. Students work with varying levels of effort to achieve high scores.
One student has a natural ability to remember information for a short time and will cram the night before a test and then achieve a high score. This student is considered successful by peers, parents, and often teachers as well. The problem is, this student has committed information to short-term memory and will forget the information as soon as it is no longer needed.
Another student has a natural ability for writing and with a few minutes of limited research is able to write an excellent paper which meets all the requirements set forth for the project. The student moves on to the next challenge with little to no retention of the research.
There is still another student who will do whatever it takes to achieve high scores. This student finds ways to get the grade without any attempt at learning the concepts and skills even for a short time. This student scours the Internet looking for the work of others to use in place of putting forth the effort to work the assignment or project personally.
While the above mentioned students may all score well, chances are small that the actual learning taking place. Let us take a moment to look on the flip side.
There is a student who struggles to make high scores. This student spends a few minutes each night looking over notes and concepts and practicing skills. He is concerned with learning the material and realizes that last-minute cramming will not suffice. Over the period of a few weeks, the student learns a great deal of information and on test day scores a B or a C. One might see this student as less successful than the A student, but in reality, this student is retaining the information studied. This student had committed the information to long-term memory and three months or even three years later can discuss it with confidence. As a result of this student's efforts, true learning has taken place.
Another student is not a natural writer, but does in-depth research for a paper. The student then labors over writing the paper, taking into consideration the feedback from the previous paper. When the paper is returned with a low score, the student is devastated. It does not matter that the score is five points higher than the last paper; this student feels like a failure. In truth, this student learned from the research and also showed an improvement in writing skills. This student has learned from the process of writing the paper. This success should be celebrated.
There is yet a third type of student who is an above average student and puts forth little to no effort while maintaining A's and B's. This student does exactly what is required and does it with the least amount of effort possible. This student generally pleases parents and frustrates teachers. The student has the potential to excel coupled with the lack of motivation to exert effort while already making passing scores without trying.
In many cases the students with high scores are looked upon as having learned the most. In reality, it is often to student who works hard and yet achieves a lower score who is accomplishing the most learning. Learning is not high scores, good grades, and few mistakes. Learning is growth. Students learn when they put forth the effort to achieve that growth. Learning involves movement from one level of knowledge to another. Learning stays with a student long after the test has been taken and forgotten.
As parents, encourage your students to learn. Students learn best when they put forth a maximum effort to do so. Encourage your child to study a little each day for every subject. Encourage your child to look at teacher feedback and work to not make the same errors on the next project. As parents, remember it is not always the child with the highest score who is learning the most. Teach your child that your expectation is not a perfect score but rather that your child put forth maximum effort on each assignment, project, test. Finally, celebrate the permanent success of learning rather than the temporary achievement of high scores.
Deborah Secord
Assistant Principal