The Language of Learning

Several books have been written on the Language of Love.  The question is how does a person want to be shown that he/she is loved.   One person might appreciate little acts of kindness, such as emptying the dishwasher or taking out the trash.   Someone else might want words of affirmation as in, “you look so great in that shirt”.   Or "I was so proud of you last week".  The idea is that if one person knows what the other person wants and then delivers that, there will be less miscommunication.

But what is the language of learning?  It seems that scholars can tell us about love but not so much about learning.  Somehow educators have convinced us that grades are the language of learning and that we all understand that language in the same way.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  

We have been told that during the pandemic kids’ grades are plotted in a U shape rather than the typical Bell Curve.  Essentially what is happening is that the number of students with failing grades or dropping out altogether has gone through the roof and so has the corresponding number of students whose grades have gone up.  All of the large school systems in Maryland are reporting double digit failures in core subjects. The question is why?   

There is a strong likelihood that the students who are failing are doing so because online learning does not align with their skill set.  There are also large numbers of kids, particularly in urban environments or lower social economic groups who do not have adequate WIFI for connectivity.  The hot spots established by schools just doesn’t do it.  

The great grades kids might be perfectly aligned with online distance learning.  Some children on the autism spectrum may be very happy not having to interact with peers.  Then there are families that may be so happy to be able to “help” their child that it is hard to tell just who is finishing high school.

But both of these scenarios hide the real issue which is the use of grades themselves.  No one wants to admit that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes.

Truthfully, do we really believe there is a quantifiable difference between a 91.2 average in a course and an 87.5?  Somebody must believe that foolishness because the two kids will probably get different grades.

Then there is the subject of how the teachers arrived at those grades.  Were the grades based on how many homework assignments the child handed in or on the quality of class participation?  These are totally different metrics but  you would never know that when you compared the grades.  One educator admitted that grades do not measure objective learning.  If they don't measure objective learning what exactly is the purpose.

Every person who has ever received grades in school can tell you about a class in which he or she got a terrible grade but a learned a great deal and the one where the course was aced  because the student knew how to butter up the teacher.

We are all learning about the language of love.  That is not a bad thing.  If we could consider working on the language of learning- that would be a great thing.