I couldn't agree more with your assessment, Sean. The "grade" was originally designed as a statistical bell curve—a system where a 'C' was the standard and an 'A' was the outlier. But we’ve skewed the stakes so high that we’ve birthed a culture of "perfection or bust." This shift has created a localized climate of panic for both kids and adults, where the absence of an 'A' feels like a moral or intellectual failing rather than a data point.
I see the friction of this system every day with my own neurodivergent daughter. She is exceptionally gifted in Language Arts, consistently performing well above grade level. However, because the system prioritizes standardization over mastery, she is frequently penalized. When she refuses to perform a repetitive "busy work" task for a skill she has already mastered, the system doesn't see a gifted child—it sees a "defiant" student. It’s a heartbreaking irony: she is being punished for knowing the material too well to see the point in performing it again.
Much of this decay traces back to the era of No Child Left Behind. By standardizing assessment, we stripped the soul out of the classroom. We replaced the mentorship-driven environment necessary for robust learning with a high-stakes competition. When we turn education into a game of points, we don't just lose the "struggling" students; we lose the gifted ones, the creative ones, and the ones who dare to think differently.
Thank you for your thoughts on this topic, Sean. I actually wrote an article touching on these ideas of standardisation and performativity in a previous piece of mine. Would be very curious to hear your perspective on it. Hope you don't mind me attaching a link here: https://samuelkammin.substack.com/p/school-uniform-and-the-performance
It’s a good read thank you for sharing! I think uniforms, just like any form of standardization, is an attempt to keep things abstract in school… to think of a kid as “student 3” and not Natalie T… it’s “too hard” to consider the lived experiences of our students so instead we try our best to group them up and give them a standard definition.
Thank you very much for the feedback and for sharing your thoughts. I think your comment here falls very well into the broader criticism of datafication, which I hope to explore more in the future. Very keen to continue researching this topic, thank you again for getting back
I couldn't agree more with your assessment, Sean. The "grade" was originally designed as a statistical bell curve—a system where a 'C' was the standard and an 'A' was the outlier. But we’ve skewed the stakes so high that we’ve birthed a culture of "perfection or bust." This shift has created a localized climate of panic for both kids and adults, where the absence of an 'A' feels like a moral or intellectual failing rather than a data point.
I see the friction of this system every day with my own neurodivergent daughter. She is exceptionally gifted in Language Arts, consistently performing well above grade level. However, because the system prioritizes standardization over mastery, she is frequently penalized. When she refuses to perform a repetitive "busy work" task for a skill she has already mastered, the system doesn't see a gifted child—it sees a "defiant" student. It’s a heartbreaking irony: she is being punished for knowing the material too well to see the point in performing it again.
Much of this decay traces back to the era of No Child Left Behind. By standardizing assessment, we stripped the soul out of the classroom. We replaced the mentorship-driven environment necessary for robust learning with a high-stakes competition. When we turn education into a game of points, we don't just lose the "struggling" students; we lose the gifted ones, the creative ones, and the ones who dare to think differently.
We lose the purpose and soul of learning.
Thank you for your thoughts on this topic, Sean. I actually wrote an article touching on these ideas of standardisation and performativity in a previous piece of mine. Would be very curious to hear your perspective on it. Hope you don't mind me attaching a link here: https://samuelkammin.substack.com/p/school-uniform-and-the-performance
It’s a good read thank you for sharing! I think uniforms, just like any form of standardization, is an attempt to keep things abstract in school… to think of a kid as “student 3” and not Natalie T… it’s “too hard” to consider the lived experiences of our students so instead we try our best to group them up and give them a standard definition.
Thank you very much for the feedback and for sharing your thoughts. I think your comment here falls very well into the broader criticism of datafication, which I hope to explore more in the future. Very keen to continue researching this topic, thank you again for getting back