They are asking for grades!!??

I have absolutely no advice since my kids don’t even know what grades are.  I haven’t given it much thought since there are no requirements of testing at all in my state.  I would love to hear what others have to say about this.  At this point, we just make sure there is a clear understand and correct mistakes just like you do, that’s it.

I’m wondering when people, who don’t have to, start to keep grades, if you do.

Charlotte said that if you had to give grades, you could give them for character issues. So maybe you could come up with a list of, say, five habits that you want them to focus on (attentiveness, best effort, neatness, etc.). Then when they finish an assignment, ask them what kind of grade they would give themselves for their “performance” with that assignment. Just an idea. 

I’ve recently been reading some books that deal with motivation in children, and they all agree with Charlotte.  I advise being very, very, very careful using extrinsic motivators with children!  Very, very careful!  It doesn’t take much to “kill” the intrinsic motivation that we want to develop.

If you DO choose to use something like a smiley face—I’d advise following some qualifications:

1.  Do NOT announce in advance to the child that there will be a reward for good work

2.  Do NOT do it every day–do it only selectively, SOME of the time you notice the work is very well done.

3.  Keep the motivator very low-key, and very specific.  Keep your verbal praise the same way–very specific.  Instead of “Very good copywork today!”  say something like “Your letters look very even today”  or “That ‘g’ looks very neat.” 

The more I read, the more science validates what Charlotte said.  Don’t kill intrinsic motivation with rewards!

I give some grades for my high schoolers for some subjects, like math or science, but we don’t make a big deal, in fact we rarely even show them to the kids.  GRADES KILL INTRINSIC MOTIVATION!

I heartily agree with Bookworm on making sure that kids are not doing the work for the purpose of getting an exterior goal.  I know for us, when they get that “good” on their paper, they know it is not a reward, but rather it just means that there is nothing to correct on that page and they can move on. (Sorry if that didn’t come across clearly in my earlier post)

Yes, Amanda I think intrinsic motivation means an inward desire to learn and know.  I know that when I was in school, I got really, really good at regurtitating back to the teacher what I knew he/she wanted.  I wanted good grades, not necessarily knowledge. 

My kids on the other hand, love to learn.  When we go to the library, they willingly search out books on topics that seem interesting to them (keep in mind they’re still young so the topics are usually animals).  They beg me to read “school” books to them while we’re eating lunch, etc.  Now, please don’t think that my kids are perfect students all of the time.  But my goal is for them to enjoy learning and knowledge because it is important to them, not because it is important to me or to our government.

Here is one passage from Volume 1, pages 143 and 144, in which Charlotte talks about how grades can cause rivalry and competition between children, as well as overshadow the inherent desire for knowledge and cause children to focus on getting “good grades” instead of learning because of their natural curiosity:

As for emulation, a very potent means of exciting and holding the attention of children, it is often objected that a desire to excel, to do better than others, implies an unloving temper, which the educator should rather repress than cultivate. Good marks of some kind are usually the rewards of those who do best, and it is urged that these good marks are often the cause of ungenerous rivalry. Now, the fact is, the children are being trained to live in the world, and in the world we all do get good marks of one kind or another, prize, or praise, or both, according as we excel others, whether in football or tennis, or in picture painting or poem-making. There are envyings and heart-burnings amongst those who come in second best; so it has been from the beginning, and doubtless will be to the end. If the child is go out into an emulous world, why, it may possibly be well that he should be brought up in an emulous school. But here is where the mother’s work comes in. She can teach her child to be first without vanity, and to be last without bitterness; that is, she can bring him up in such a hearty outgoing of love and sympathy that joy in his brother’s success takes the sting out of his own failure, and regret for his brother’s failure leaves no room for self glorification. Again, if a system of marks be used as a stimulus to attention and effort, the good marks should be given for conduct rather than for cleverness––that is, they should be within everybody’s reach: every child may get his mark for punctuality, order, attention, diligence, obedience, gentleness; and therefore, marks of this kind may be given without danger of leaving a rankling sense of injustice in the breast of the child who fails. Emulation becomes suicidal when it is used as the incentive to intellectual effort, because the desire for knowledge subsides in proportion as the desire to excel becomes active. As a matter of fact, marks of any sort, even for conduct, distract the attention of children from their proper work, which is in itself interesting enough to secure good behaviour as well as attention.