Mole 14: School without Grades?
Drafting vs. Editing Minds, Declaration of Independence, The Sandlot's endless dream
🥘 Hi! a few paradoxes subtly come together in this issue of the Mole.
No publications to mention, so on to the Mole!
School without grades?
💯 I came across a fascinating development teaching summer school. The high school students work on what you might expect, a "credit recovery" program, where they plug away through canned computer program until they complete the curriculum with high enough grades. Meanwhile, the 8th grade and lower classes are not graded during summer session. What are they there for than?? You must be wondering.
Remember Goodhart's Law from Mole 12 - when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. We asked whether grades were effective measurements or bad targets. Well, what happens when the measure (grades) is replaced by something else all together?
In the 8th and 6th grade classes, students journal for the sake of putting thoughts to paper. They engage in class discussion to practice listening and speaking in the context of a greater conversation. They solve math prompts to practice calculating and reasoning logically. You get the idea. Seems simple, but notice the significance.
Students practice the micro-skills that rev their learning engine. Getting a student who is checked out and refusing to participate is like starting up a train, the hardest part is getting started; afterwards the momentum takes little energy to keep moving forward.
Since we aren't grading or testing, students can ask one another for help without the fear of cheating. They aren't pressured to perform, just practice. Without grades, what motivates them? It seems that students run a cost-benefit analysis subconsciously and resolve that engaging is more beneficial than being board. Some students sleep, others doodle in the journals, but eventually, they find themselves joining the fun, joining the endless game (more on that at the end).
In this no-grades experiment, the target becomes practice and the measurement becomes participation. Now, many other factors could be considered. Chromebooks are kept closed and the students have the upper hand because of paper-based learning. Classrooms sizes average 8 students, significantly less than the normal 30 students, affording more opportunity to build a classroom with relationships instead of rules (more on that next Mole). The teacher can be a significant variable depending on their enthusiasm and ability to lead the class.
The drafting vs. editing minds
✍ I began applying this idea of just practice in other areas. When I go to do something (like write this newsletter or make a video on the YouTube channel) I keep the part of me that does the thing separate from the critic in me that perfects the thing, the editor.
In Jordan Peterson's interesting conversation with John Vervaeke, Peterson shares that his soon to be released writing program intentionally separates the writing stage from the editing stage to keep the critic from prematurely tearing apart the structure before it has a chance to be erected.
Author Anne Lamott lays out a similar method in her book Bird by Bird (1995). The point: make really messy first drafts. Whatever it takes to get words on to the paper, even to the point of discounting grammar. In my experience, one cannot completely segregate the writing mind from the editing mind. We draft with a telos (having the end or vision in mind), and that end shapes or edits how we write things down in the first place. One must find the effective working relationship between the two.
Paul Vanderklay posted a commentary to the Peterson/Vervaeke conversation and said that he posts YouTube videos as purely unedited drafts. Yet, he talks about how all of us have "filters" in our minds that tell us what to say and when/how/why to say it (or not). Is this filter the editor of our conscious?
According to the book featured in Mole 13, C.S. Lewis was a notoriously careless speller. He seemed to prioritize the substance over the technicalities. Additionally, recall how Lewis elevated the practice of writing over the resulting product of whatever he happened to be writing about.
The Declaration of Independence
📃 In remembrance of the Declaration of Independence, here is the last sentence from the founding document:
"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
For a deeper look, check out the video clip Hillsdale college posted from their free online class on the Declaration. Larry P. Arnn points out:
"The whole document is a connected chain from the general to the particular. And it is exactly the process everyone of us goes through every time we make a hard choice."
Never keeping score
⚾ To tie these ideas together, here is a quote from one of my favorite films, The Sandlot (1993). The film has been called the most American film ever made.
"But when I finally got up enough guts to go out there and try and make friends, I found out that they never kept score, they never chose sides, they never even really stopped playing the game. It just went on forever. Every day they picked up where they left off the day before. It was like an endless dream game."
Even then, the boys grew up and went on to work in fields that kept score. Perhaps this "just practice" idea is a mere mindset nested in a world of grades. Where does it end and the world of keeping score takes over? Like the Writing and Editing minds, the two worlds must find a balance without one consuming the other.
Endearingly
🎎 Mole is best enjoyed when shared. So if you value the letter, don't forget to share the Mole with a friend (or enemy) and help the cause.
Feel free to reply to this message with any links that spark your interest. I appreciate suggestions from the readership.
You can always access previous letters at derekjfiedler.substack.com
Until the next Mole,
Derek