I was one of those kids. You know the type, every report card my marks were somewhere between average and good, with comments about me not meeting my potential… The ‘BS’ grade of ‘B’ but only a ‘S’atisfactory for effort, rather than ‘G’ood. With a few exceptions the marks could have been ‘A’s. It got worse in university where my marks became further divergent, with me getting ‘A’s in the courses I liked and ‘C’s in the ones I didn’t.
It took my Teacher Ed degree at 29 years old before my marks started to actually represent my abilities, and even then it was partially because I surrounded myself with people who pushed me. I can still hear Anna-Christana’s voice, “Dave, look at our calendar, we have 3 big things due, one on Thursday, two on Friday next week, so you need to start at least one of them this weekend, ok?”
It took me almost two decades of schooling to figure it out on my own before starting my Masters. And now, despite knowing these kind of students, despite being one of these students, I still don’t know a magic formula to move a ‘BS’ to a ‘BG’ or an ‘AG’. As a side note, it’s not as much about the ‘A’ mark as the ‘G’ for effort, that I’m really interested in seeing… change the effort, grades will eventually follow.
In high school, favourite teachers of mine could get me to put more effort into things, but they didn’t decide to be a favourite teacher, I decided. That speaks a lot to the importance of relationships in teaching, but kids don’t always meet you there. Yes, we can excite these students about a project that are in their areas of interest. Yes, we can give them more choice in assignments and ways to demonstrate learning, but at some point they need to step up too.
I wish there was a secret I could reveal. I wish I could look back in time and say, ‘If only I had done this‘, or i’If only someone had provided me with that‘, well then things would have been different. Maybe there is something, but for me it was my age and my willingness to put the effort in. Until then, learning on someone else’s agenda was pretty much BS to me.
