Here's a novel idea for the education system as a whole:
For each child, track their progress made, and improvement, not just a single mark on the day.
What made me think about this?
Eldest daughter, A, received her result for an Algebra test from 2 weeks ago. She got a really good mark, but she is still disappointed. I started thinking about how to help her see that this is simply a single data point, on a single day.
As that, it is not all that helpful.
It reminded me of Rule 4 out of Jordan B Peterson's book, 12 Rules for Life: "Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else is today".
No matter what mark A got for this exam paper, it gives her no indication about the progress she has made this term.
What would be much more useful is if her class sat a similar paper in the first week of the term, before they had really had any lessons. This allows you to establish a benchmark for each child.
Then, if you can say to A, after the second test, that she improved her score by 38%, it can provide much more useful information on real progress made, which I imagine is the whole point of having lessons during the course of the term.
Knowing that you've improved, compared to your starting score, can do wonders for confidence as well as remaining interested in the whole process of education. With just single, stand-alone data points for each subject, the only option is to compare yourself to the 100% score, which we all fail at all the time, and it completely overshadows the real progress made.
With two girls in the education system, I don't recall a single time when any mark or score was presented in relation to a previous score, showing progress made or lack thereof.
Why do we still believe that this is the best way to do things?
For each child, track their progress made, and improvement, not just a single mark on the day.
What made me think about this?
Eldest daughter, A, received her result for an Algebra test from 2 weeks ago. She got a really good mark, but she is still disappointed. I started thinking about how to help her see that this is simply a single data point, on a single day.
As that, it is not all that helpful.
It reminded me of Rule 4 out of Jordan B Peterson's book, 12 Rules for Life: "Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else is today".
No matter what mark A got for this exam paper, it gives her no indication about the progress she has made this term.
What would be much more useful is if her class sat a similar paper in the first week of the term, before they had really had any lessons. This allows you to establish a benchmark for each child.
Then, if you can say to A, after the second test, that she improved her score by 38%, it can provide much more useful information on real progress made, which I imagine is the whole point of having lessons during the course of the term.
Knowing that you've improved, compared to your starting score, can do wonders for confidence as well as remaining interested in the whole process of education. With just single, stand-alone data points for each subject, the only option is to compare yourself to the 100% score, which we all fail at all the time, and it completely overshadows the real progress made.
With two girls in the education system, I don't recall a single time when any mark or score was presented in relation to a previous score, showing progress made or lack thereof.
Why do we still believe that this is the best way to do things?