Redesigning the Report Card: A Commentary on the GOOD.is Challenge

I had been following GOOD.is on their challenge to redesign the school report card. On the 25th of this month they announced their winner.

I was looking at this and although it is a good concept I am not sure that redesigning the school report card is the right thing to be challenging people to do. I would love to see them put a challenge forward that challenges people to propose new ways to challenge how we currently test children.

After having delivered many years worth of alternative education programs I believe we have found a really nice balance of allowing students to test themselves while still maintaining their self-confidence. In the report card that I would produce students would have to report on how many times they reached  their personal goals. In my classes (often outdoors in a park) students were required to set 3 different goals each week that they would work towards. Students, at the beginning of every week were to set a personal goal, a social goal, and a physical goal. This allowed students to focus on not just one aspect of their entire being. For example when Johnny is asked to go to the blackboard and write the letter "B" on the board at that moment his entire self-worth, his entire being is wrapped up in whether or not he knows how to do that task. If he doesn't know what the letter "B" looks like at that very moment then most likely some other kids will laugh at him, they might even call him stupid, and worst of all the teacher might scoff at him and say something like, "oh Johnny haven't you been studying this?" At that moment it does not matter that Johnny is the fastest kid in the class, or that he tells some of the funniest jokes you will ever hear. At that moment all he will know is that he is simply not "smart" enough.

We need to change this. So many people have talked about multiple intelligences and so few schools are praising this or talking about ways to encourage this type of learning/grading.

Now am I not arguing that we shouldn't challenge each other and that there should be no test, absolutely not. But I believe reminding kids, especially at a young age that there are so many things they are good at while they learn to love learning is crucial.

I remember in our very first baseball program that taught kids to read one kid at the very beginning saying he HATED learning and school was stupid. I mean this kid was only 6 years old. He had already learned that school was not for him and that he was just not going to participate. I told him "look around, we are in a park, we have baseballs, and you are in control, does this look like a regular "school" to you?" It took some time but he eventually caught on that setting your own goals, embracing all of who you are at every moment in life, and working hard can actually be a lot of fun and really productive. Over the next few months this kid along with many more have learned to love learning and that exploration can be so much fun.

So what should our report cards look like? My opinion is that they should have multiple areas of excellence on them and not just grades. Grades are definitely a way to measure but I wish that the grades on these reports cards would only reflect and be focused on showing us how we are doing in comparison to ourselves more then they currently do.

So for each week that students were asked to set their own goals I would want the report card to report on how many times we were successful at hitting our own targets. There also would be a small notes section to this goal setting section to allow for student and teacher to write in their comments on why or why not a student reached their own pre-determined goal that week. I should mention at this junction that at the beginning of every week while the students did set their own goals that they were also challenged and given the task of convincing the teacher (me and my colleagues) that their goals were satisfactory for that week. They didn't always set their bar high enough but this is where the real fun began, the art of negotiation. Student and teacher decided together each week what their goals could and should be.

So why this post? Well for one because I have a real interest in how we educate ourselves and each other. Another reason is because I believe that even as adults we have our own hidden report cards. This grading and comparing gets so ingrained into our heads that we let it feed into all kinds of aspects our lives. It can be healthy to push ourselves with these grades and these accomplishments but only to a certain point. This grading, as we have seen many times, also has the ability to be completely destructive.

What does your perfect report card look like?