The Biggest Unnoticed Problem in Today’s Education System (And Small Changes You Can Make At Home)
Last Tuesday, I sat across from Mia’s mom at my 4th grade classroom desk, the fluorescent lights humming above us and crumbs from the PTA bake sale sticking to my lesson plan book. Mia is one of my hardest workers—she stays in during recess to help organize the book bin and writes stories about her rescue cat that make the whole class laugh. But her mom wouldn’t look at the writing sample I’d laid out. She twisted the lid of her travel coffee mug back and forth and said, “She came home crying last Tuesday after her spelling test. Got 18 out of 20. Kept saying she ruined her grade average because she wasn’t perfect.”
I’ve been teaching for 12 years, and when people ask me what the biggest problem in the current education system is, most expect me to talk about underfunding or class sizes or too much standardized testing. All of those are real, hard problems that make my job harder every day. But the issue that I see hurting kids more than anything else, that shows up in conference after conference, is that we’ve trained an entire generation of kids to fear being wrong more than they love learning.
Last month, we did our annual bean sprouting science project. The assignment was simple: plant a bean, track its growth over two weeks, and write a short paragraph about what you observed. Half the class overwatered their beans or left them in a dark closet and nothing sprouted. Javi, one of my students who loves anything to do with plants, turned in his project with a clear chart of how much he watered every day, and a note that said “I think I killed it because I watered it 3 times a day instead of 1. Next time I would try less water and put it by the window.” Our school’s grading rubric requires the project to have a “successful outcome” to get an A. Javi got a B. I argued for an A, because he did exactly what learning is supposed to be: he tried something, it didn’t work, he learned why. But the rule was the rule. Javi came up to me after class and asked if he could do the whole project again over break to get the A. He didn’t care that he’d already learned more from his failed bean than most kids learned from their perfectly sprouted ones. He just cared that he didn’t get the right result.
After that conference with Mia’s mom, I realized how much this attitude bleeds out of the classroom and into home life, too. Most parents don’t even realize they’re reinforcing it, just by small things they say every day. But there are small, low-effort shifts you can make that help unlearn this fear of wrongness, no matter what the school’s grading rules say.
First, change what you praise and ask about. Most of us default to “What grade did you get?” when our kids walk in the door, or “Great job on your A!” when they bring home a test. That sends the message that the grade is the point, not the work. Instead, try asking at dinner, “What’s the most interesting mistake you made today?” or “Did you ask any questions in class that you still don’t have an answer to?” When they bring home a good grade, instead of praising the grade, praise the effort: “I saw you spent every night this week practicing that multiplication, that’s awesome” instead of “Wow, perfect score, good job.” When they bring home a lower grade, don’t start with talking about how to fix it to get a better grade next time. Start with asking, “Which mistake do you think taught you the most?” Mia’s mom tried that a week after our conference. She texted me that Mia brought home a B on her math quiz, and instead of crying, she pointed to the two word problems she got wrong and said “I always mix up when I’m supposed to multiply and when I’m supposed to divide, so I’m going to do one word problem a night after homework until I get it.” That’s learning, that’s the whole point.
Another small thing: let your kids see you mess up, and talk about your mistakes out loud. You don’t have to make big dramatic moments out of it. If you burn the toast for breakfast, just say “Oops, I got distracted answering an email and forgot to set a timer. Next time I’ll set it right next to me so I remember.” If you can’t figure out how to assemble the new bookshelf, say “I read the instructions wrong, let’s go back and try it again.” Kids learn that mistakes are something to hide and be ashamed of from watching us act like we never make any. Normalizing small mistakes every day makes them less scary.
Third thing: don’t fix their mistakes before they ask. If your kid is drawing a picture and the horse’s head is twice as big as its body, don’t jump in and say “Wait, that’s too big, let me show you how to fix it.” If they’re practicing spelling and get a word wrong on their first try, don’t correct them immediately before they’ve finished the list. Let them work through it, let them see the mistake on their own. A lot of the time, they don’t even care that it’s wrong—they just care that they made something.
Last Friday, Javi stopped by my classroom after school to show me his new bean experiment. He’s got four beans now, two in the sun and two in the closet, and he’s watering one of each once a day and the other twice a day, just to see what happens. He still hasn’t gotten a perfect score on a spelling test this semester. He still asks if he can retake projects to bump up his grade. But he’s curious, he’s willing to try things even if they don’t work. That’s the thing no grading rubric can measure, and that’s what we’re losing when we only care about being right.
The system won’t change overnight. We’re still arguing about the science project rubric at my school, and it’ll probably be another year before anything shifts. But every time a parent asks “What mistake did you make today?” instead of “What grade did you get?” that’s one more kid who learns that learning matters more than being perfect. It’s not a fix for the whole system, but it’s enough for the kids in front of you.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » The Biggest Unnoticed Problem in Today’s Education System (And Small Changes You Can Make At Home)