I stumbled upon this article via the Handbook of Nature Study and The Nature Journal as a Tool for Learning. This article, "The Plural of Leaf is Tree," perfectly describes how I feel about grades and learning.
I got good grades in school. I was one of those obnoxious kids who was competing for the 99.7% or (heaven help me) perfect plus extra credit. Getting good grades certainly has its merits. But if you focus on grades to the exclusion of creative problem solving, understanding the problem solving process, thinking for yourself, and being an individual, then something quite valuable is lost.
Favorite lines:
"There is a significant difference between doing well in school and learning. And the fact of the matter is that because it's hard to quantify, the educational system routinely fails to recognize and reward true educational excellence.
"As Socrates said over 2,000 years ago, "Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel." Unfortunately, report cards ordinarily reveal how much a vessel has been filled rather than the extent to which a flame has been kindled. The emphasis in most scholastic assessment situations is on whether a student's response is right or wrong. The process by which the student arrived at her response is discounted or disregarded. As a result, a response that is just as good or even superior to the one designated as "correct" often does not get the credit it deserves.
"For many children, the thrill is not in acquiring knowledge, but rather in manipulating that knowledge in an interesting manner. And satisfaction comes not from perfecting skills, but rather from applying those skills in a new and different fashion. Regrettably, these youngsters [smart alecs] often are stuck in a standard system where they are frequently chastised and rarely cherished.
"Society needs knowledgeable and skillful people in order to function; but it needs creative and innovative people in order to flourish."
Yeah, that. :)
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