A recent request for ideas involving grades in education stimulated the creation of this blog entry. My first book involves cooperation in the development and preservation of civilization. My second applies these concepts to the world of work. I am planning a third on how these principles fit the field of education. So here is a response to the application of grading in education.

Grading in education is often criticized and with good reason. Traditional systems set criteria that measure what the teacher or the system deems appropriate for the purpose(s) of offering the course. Eng. Lit. 101, for example, may test to see if the student has completed the assigned readings and understands the basic concepts presented in class. This seems legitimate, but is inadequate to the needs of evaluating the performances of the students, the teacher, and the institution. Such systems tend to accentuate a competitive relationship among students, and an adversarial relationship between the students and the educational system (including the teacher). This is not comfortable to anyone, nor is it conducive to the learning intended.

Performance evaluation is necessary. It should also be, not only comfortable, but an integral part of the learning process. Since we have no direct and objective way of looking into the mind to see what data has entered and how it has been assimilated, we have to judge what has been learned by performance; tests, oral responses, projects, etc. Why is what we are doing so uncomfortable and, as many believe, so ineffective?

Begin with purpose. Consider the purpose of performance evaluation. Although there are many benefits that can be derived from evaluating performance, there is one primary purpose that is often neglected... improving performance. If the performance evaluation does not serve to improve performance it is not worth the time and effort it takes. If you don’t want to improve your performance, why measure it?

Consider the purposes of the course. They are usually stated in the synopsis listed in the course catalogue, and most grading systems are based on these purposes. But there are other purposes involved. The teacher has purposes. The institution has purposes. And most importantly, the students have purposes. Remember the stakeholder principle. All of these purposes must be considered in the process of evaluating performance. The institution has every right to measure levels of achievement for various reasons, most importantly to improve its level of support to the teachers and students in the learning process. The teacher needs to measure the attainment of his or her purposes in order to improve teaching skills and processes. The purposes of the course are important because they are set by education experts and they relate to the accepted knowledge base required for established careers. The performances related to all these purposes need to be evaluated in order to improve the contributions made by all involved.

Now consider the purposes of the student. Most grading systems today assume that the primary motivation of students is to get good grades. They are there to do whatever is required to get good grades. Not only do evaluation systems make this assumption, so do many of the educational cultures we have today. This is short sighted, lazy thinking. Students have ideas about what they want to learn and need to learn. If they don’t the institution and the teachers need to help them develop these ideas, or the education they provide will be next to meaningless. Good teachers will often spend time at the beginning of a course describing the benefits to be gained by learning the material that will be presented. This is good, but not good enough. Students need to be asked to to think about how the course will align with their educational and career plans. That alignment will determine their motivation. That alignment will also point to the aspects of their performance that they will be most interested in assessing and improving. Those things that motivate the student need to be a part of the performance evaluation process.

Alignment of purpose is the basis of cooperation. Cooperation is the most effective way to learn. Competition is often applied to motivate achievement, but competition succeeds in motivating only the few who win and those are the ones who probably don’t need the motivation. Constructive motivation comes from aligning the purposes of the student with the purposes of the class, and the resulting achievement is further nourished by a cooperative learning environment. Synergy comes from cooperation, not from competition. Education is a cooperative process, not a competitive one.

Suggestions:

Performance criteria can be set for the class as a whole. This approach can generate teamwork (striving to improve class scores), teach cooperative skills, and perhaps measure some of the parameters set for the institution or for the teacher. (30%)

Examples:

Achievement of steps toward completion of a class project

Number and quality of references applied to class topic from all students

Percentage of participation in voluntary activities

Traditional performance criteria can be set for all students, tests, papers, etc. These criteria reflect the assimilation of the course curriculum. (30%)

Performance criteria can be set by each student for him or herself. It should involve a conference with the teacher and the alignment of personal educational purposes with the purposes of the course. This sets a cooperative student/teacher relationship and supports motivation of the student. It also provides the teacher with considerable insight to the learning process. These criteria may match traditional criteria but need to also be identified as specific to student purposes. They may also diverge from (but not be incompatible) with traditional criteria, such as excelling in a certain subtopic (research) or a specific skill (leading a group). (50%)

The Continuum -

Conflict <<<... Competition ...>>> Cooperation

Cooperation is at one end of a continuum which represents an array of human responses to other human beings. Conflict, at the opposite end, emerges from fear or greed. It pits one person against another and is characterized by the pursuit of destroying the other guy. Damage is inflicted and received. Progress is questionable and always costly. Wars are the extreme examples, but conflict also shows its ugly face at work and sometimes in our homes.

At the preferable end of the continuum lies cooperation. This is where progress is virtually certain and the costs are minimized. If you and I can agree on where we want to go and each of us can be flexible about how to get there, it should be both a successful and enjoyable trip. Why should anyone not want to cooperate? Well, the agreeing and the being flexible have something to do with it, and there are other factors that come into play. I will have a lot more to say about these issues in later posts, but let me introduce perhaps the most important factor, competition.

Our societies and cultures worship competition. "Thou shall compete!", has been added to the Ten Commandments. We are pressured with the need to compete at work. Our kids learn to compete in school for grades and on the playground for status. Some of us even have lawns that compete with the neighbor's lawns for richness and fullness and lack of crabgrass. And don't forget the cars, and the outfits, and the hair cuts, and the houses, and the schools we send our kids to, and the clubs we belong to, and all the other things I haven't mentioned. We compete out of pride, but mostly because we are told to. Our bosses preach competition. There are one million and one ads that are trying to sell something to help us beat the other guy, and they encourage us to be competitive so we will buy their products.

Competition is part cooperation and part conflict. The need, the drive, to win is the conflict part. The rules are the cooperation part. Competition is conflict with rules. As the need to win is emphasized, the rules don't seem as important, and as they are stretched or broken the activity becomes more and more like conflict. The results become questionable and costly.

There are some legitimate applications of competition. The one that makes it so prevalent in our society is in the marketplace of free enterprise. In this context competition tends to lower prices and raise quality. Another legitimate application of competition is in sport. Athletes improve their skills and spectators are provided with greater interest because of the competition.

There are other areas, however, where competition is often a destructive force. The enterprise, whether public or private, profit or non-profit, needs to be focused on the effective and efficient accomplishment of its mission. Internal competition detracts from this purpose, and inhibits the enterprise from being externally competitive, where it needs to be. But, by far, the most destructive place for competition to be taken seriously is within the family. The purpose of family has to do with love and support, not competition. And even though growth and development can be stimulated by competition, it should not be allowed to inhibit the love and support. There is competition enough outside the family.

There are many levels of competition, and some is good just for the fun it can provide. But we are far too serious about being competitive today and that can take the fun out of much of our lives. Is it really so important to have a better looking lawn? Is getting into the right school really worth sacrificing the joys of childhood? Keep in mind that there is no reason that you and your neighbor can't both have beautiful lawns by cooperating with each other. And most psychologists will agree that a normal childhood is a very important factor in success as an adult.

My message is that we need to cooperate more, compete less, and avoid conflict altogether wherever possible.

The Prime Covenant

"If you don't kill me, I won't kill you."

This promise, this agreement, this covenant, was the first step to the development of civilization. I call it the Prime Covenant and it's benefit, beside avoiding mayhem, was that it allowed cooperation.

Primitive man learned this concept slowly through trial and error. Procreation worked better when the man and the woman didn't try to kill each other in the process, and they soon learned that if the man brought home food to feed the woman, the woman could feed the babies and generations could follow. The family it seems was the basic level of cooperation for Man. This cooperation thing was not all that easy, however. Many thousands of years later (today) there remain imperfections in this basic relationship, and it is sometimes referred to as "the battle of the sexes". More on this in later blog entries.

Another level of cooperation came as men learned (or perhaps were instructed by women) that it took more than one guy to bring down a mastodon, or even a saber toothed tiger ("Get Og from next cave to help, fool"). And soon hunting parties became an application of cooperation that benefitted groups of families.

One thing lead to another and before long somebody wanted to make a law. It was probably a little guy. They were always keen on cooperation. Some of the big guys preferred mayhem. Maybe that first law had to do with not using clubs to settle arguments or maybe it had to do with sharing food when times were tough. But whatever it was, it started this big thing with laws that eventually lead to lawyers. Aside from lawyers there were some good things that came out of having laws. After all, laws are the written version of cooperation.

This process of finding more and more ways to cooperate is the growth of civilization. It is my premiss that many of us, or maybe all of us in different ways, have lost the connection between cooperation and civilization. Maybe it's just Congress, but I think we all could do better.