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| Photo by Jannes Jacobs on Unsplash |
Among my other career adventures, I was for one year a
full-time middle school teacher. It was probably the weirdest, most exhausting,
and most frustrating year of my life. Towards the end of the year, all the teachers were asked to
submit the names of their top students from each grade for an academic award.
There wasn’t any guidance given on how those top students should be identified.
I looked through my class rosters and considered what metrics to use. It became
obvious that if I based the award on grade average alone, all my top achievers
were girls. So I decided to recognize the boy and girl from each grade
who had the highest average. This was a difficult decision to make, but I
decided that it was a bit like having male and female competitions in the
Olympics so that contestants are competing on an equal footing. After all,
girls are 70% of high school valedictorians. Clearly, in secondary school
academic achievement, the girls have the advantage. Since the class I taught
was one semester long and I taught three grades, I submitted 12 names for
recognition.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the awards assembly;
my class schedule didn’t permit it. But one of my fellow teachers reported that
when my eighth-grade boy honoree (I’ll call him Jay) was called to the stage to
get his certificate, he looked around him in stunned silence, turned red, and
stumbled up to the podium to claim his award in complete confusion, blinking
back tears. Apparently Jay had never, in his entire 9 years of school, been
recognized or rewarded for academic achievement.
Since Jay had been my student in the fall semester, and the
school year was drawing to a close, I never saw him to speak to again. I’ll
never know if or how that moment of recognition affected him beyond the
immediate moment. But I do know what I learned.
1.
Metrics matter. They don’t replace
creative thought and decision making, but they can provide new insights and
open our eyes to things we might be missing. Jay was not an outstanding student
in any way. He was frequently disruptive. He showed little enthusiasm in class.
He had to be nagged to finish assignments. It wasn’t until I sat down and
looked at the metrics that I realized he had outperformed his peers.
2.
Compromise your principles. My first
inclination was to limit the reward to the top performer in each grade,
regardless of gender. After all, don’t boys get enough advantages in this
patriarchal world? But then I thought, what if I am biased? What if I am, by
reason of gender and sentiment, giving girls the benefit of the doubt when I
grade assignments? I don’t know why girls outperform boys in school, but
clearly they do. What harm does it do to extend my recognition to more
students? Jay’s stunned gratitude more than confirmed that my compromise was
the right choice.
3.
Be fair. Once I decided on the rules to
apply, I did not allow myself to be swayed by other considerations, such as
absenteeism or deportment. Those things are heavily impacted by outside
considerations like family situation and health issues. I kept it strictly to
grade average as recorded on the school computer system.
4.
Recognition changes things. During the
semester, it didn’t occur to me to praise Jay for his efforts. Mostly I was
trying to keep him awake, in his seat, and on task. I noticed when he came to
school on a snowy day in a light hoodie and pointed out to him privately that
the school had a coat closet where he could get a donated coat. How much better
would his learning experience have been if I had taken more notice of his
efforts in class? Giving praise for small achievements, saying thank you for
minor favors, can have a transformative effect over time, and it just makes
everybody happier.
