Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #409 Report Cards - Do They Matter? An Interview With Alfie Kohn
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
- 0:07Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers, now.
- 0:10Speaker 2: In order to get a good read that the values
- 0:13Speaker 2: for learning itself, It's now just a tedious prerequisite forgetting
- 0:19Speaker 2: the high mark. Which is why the schools that care
- 0:23Speaker 2: not only about academic excellence, but care about kids wanting
- 0:28Speaker 2: to be lifelong learners and remaining curious never would reduce
- 0:33Speaker 2: anything the kids did to a letter or number.
- 0:36Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mom
- 0:39Speaker 1: and Dad.
- 0:40Speaker 3: This time last year we had some fantastic conversations with
- 0:43Speaker 3: a guy called Alfie Kohne. Alfie is the author of
- 0:46Speaker 3: a number of books, including Punished by Rewards, The Homework Myth,
- 0:50Speaker 3: Unconditional Parenting, The Schools Our Children Deserve, and I mean,
- 0:56Speaker 3: I could go on. He's written Beyond Discipline, No Contest,
- 0:58Speaker 3: What does it mean to be well dicated? Feel bad Education?
- 1:02Speaker 3: And so much more. And today we're going to talk
- 1:04Speaker 3: to Alfie about some of those educational concepts, specifically report cards,
- 1:10Speaker 3: because it's that time of year.
- 1:11Speaker 4: It's that time of the year and parents and children
- 1:13Speaker 4: are looking at report cards and a lot of students
- 1:15Speaker 4: and parents are invested in what those report cards say, Alfie,
- 1:18Speaker 4: you've got a really strong education background and you've researched
- 1:21Speaker 4: this for decades. What's your position on it and why?
- 1:25Speaker 2: Well? The research finds that if you take a large
- 1:29Speaker 2: number of students and give them all the same assignment
- 1:33Speaker 2: to do, and then you randomly assign them either to
- 1:36Speaker 2: a graded or non graded condition, there are three robust differences.
- 1:45Speaker 2: Students who are led to focus on their grades or marks. First,
- 1:50Speaker 2: become less interested in whatever the topic is they were
- 1:54Speaker 2: working on. For the best of my knowledge, every study
- 1:58Speaker 2: that has ever looked at intrinsic motivation to learn and
- 2:03Speaker 2: how it's affected by grades has found that grades have
- 2:07Speaker 2: an adverse impact. Second, students who are trying to focus
- 2:12Speaker 2: on their grades will pick the easiest possible task if
- 2:16Speaker 2: they're given a choice, not because they're lazy, you know,
- 2:21Speaker 2: or lack of growth mindset, but because they're rational. If
- 2:26Speaker 2: the point is to bring up your grades, then obviously
- 2:30Speaker 2: you're going to pick the shortest book or the most
- 2:32Speaker 2: familiar topic to do your project on because that maximizes
- 2:37Speaker 2: the chance of getting a good grade. So when schools
- 2:40Speaker 2: use grades and parents emphasize the importance, that's a way
- 2:45Speaker 2: to convince kids to avoid intellectual risk taking. And the
- 2:50Speaker 2: third effect, according to the research, is that the more
- 2:53Speaker 2: focused you are on grades as a student, the more
- 2:57Speaker 2: shallow your thinking tends to become. Now you're not interested
- 3:01Speaker 2: in asking questions like how do we know this is true?
- 3:05Speaker 2: Or doesn't that contradict what we were reading last week?
- 3:08Speaker 2: You're just going to ask do we have to know
- 3:10Speaker 2: this for the test?
- 3:11Speaker 3: Alfie, listening to those three reasons, I love the way
- 3:14Speaker 3: that you've gone straight into the research, and this is
- 3:17Speaker 3: consistent with so much of the work that I've been
- 3:19Speaker 3: doing for the last number of years as well. I'd
- 3:21Speaker 3: love to hear the way because you really do have
- 3:24Speaker 3: an extraordinary gift for the way that you explain and
- 3:28Speaker 3: reduce the research into concepts that people can just grab
- 3:31Speaker 3: hold off so quickly. The first point that you raised,
- 3:34Speaker 3: I just want to zero in on that for a moment.
- 3:36Speaker 3: You said that when we emphasize grades, when we ask
- 3:40Speaker 3: children to complete an assignment so that they can be
- 3:43Speaker 3: evaluated and assessed, that they actually become less interested in
- 3:48Speaker 3: the task. Now, any parent, any school teacher would just
- 3:52Speaker 3: shudder to think that the very thing that matters to
- 3:54Speaker 3: their children for their capacity for their learning. By virtual
- 3:59Speaker 3: it being assessed is going to reduce their interest in
- 4:01Speaker 3: doing it. But hang on, this is like, this is important,
- 4:03Speaker 3: you have to learn this. So how do you explain
- 4:06Speaker 3: this reduction in intrinsic motivation?
- 4:09Speaker 2: First, let's back up and make sure everyone understands the
- 4:12Speaker 2: important difference between intrinsic motivation, which means you do something
- 4:17Speaker 2: because you find it meaningful or it gives you pleasure,
- 4:20Speaker 2: and extrinsic motivation, which means you do something in order
- 4:25Speaker 2: to bring about a result outside of or extrinsic to
- 4:28Speaker 2: the task, like getting some reward. In this case it's
- 4:32Speaker 2: a grade, but in other cases we could be talking
- 4:35Speaker 2: about money or food, or praise, good job. Those are
- 4:40Speaker 2: all extrinsic inducements. So I don't give a crap how
- 4:45Speaker 2: motivated our kids are. What matters is how our kids
- 4:50Speaker 2: are motivated. That is, does it tend to be more
- 4:53Speaker 2: intrinsic or extrinsic Every time we give kids a gold star,
- 4:59Speaker 2: you know, or or a or a good job, or
- 5:03Speaker 2: a grade or any other kind of reward a doggie
- 5:07Speaker 2: biscuit for doing something, we have reduced their interest in
- 5:12Speaker 2: whatever they had to do to get that reward. So
- 5:17Speaker 2: for example, other research has found that children whose parents
- 5:23Speaker 2: praise them or otherwise reward them tend to be less
- 5:27Speaker 2: generous and caring than their peers, and the effect is
- 5:31Speaker 2: most pronounced if they were rewarded or praised for being generous,
- 5:37Speaker 2: because what we've taught them is helping somebody is just
- 5:41Speaker 2: a means to an end. In this case, if I
- 5:45Speaker 2: help them and I'm taught being good, that means that
- 5:48Speaker 2: I'll get congratulated or some kind of reward given to me,
- 5:52Speaker 2: which devalues helping. So exactly the same thing is true
- 5:58Speaker 2: in school, where if if you're learning in order to
- 6:03Speaker 2: get a good grade, that devalues for learning itself. It's
- 6:07Speaker 2: now just a tedious prerequisite forgetting the high mark, which
- 6:12Speaker 2: is why the schools that care not only about academic
- 6:16Speaker 2: excellence but care about kids wanting to be lifelong learners
- 6:22Speaker 2: and remaining curious never would reduce anything the kids did
- 6:27Speaker 2: to a letter or number.
- 6:29Speaker 3: It's interesting in Australia there has been a general movement
- 6:32Speaker 3: away from a heavy A lot of parents haven't caught
- 6:34Speaker 3: onto this yet, but in the schools they understand this.
- 6:37Speaker 3: There's been a really strong movement away from this extraordinary
- 6:41Speaker 3: emphasis on you've got to get the grade to get
- 6:43Speaker 3: into the course. There are now so many alternative pathways
- 6:45Speaker 3: to get into different degrees. And of course once you're in,
- 6:48Speaker 3: nobody actually asks you what your grade is. Once you've graduated,
- 6:51Speaker 3: no one says what grades did you get? It's just
- 6:54Speaker 3: a mean swindy. But we've got these wonderful alternative pathways.
- 6:57Speaker 3: Now after the break, we are going to talk to
- 7:00Speaker 3: Alfie about some of those solutions so that we can
- 7:02Speaker 3: create the right environment at home in spite of the
- 7:06Speaker 3: grade emphasis that happens. And we're also going to talk
- 7:09Speaker 3: about grades for efforts.
- 7:11Speaker 1: It's their Happy Families podcast.
- 7:14Speaker 5: Our Screens Creating Tension at Home, Tweens, teens and Screens
- 7:18Speaker 5: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.
- 7:23Speaker 5: Bye today at happyfamilies dot com, dot au slash shop.
- 7:28Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
- 7:30Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers now And today we
- 7:33Speaker 4: have one of our favorite guests back with us, Alfie Cone,
- 7:36Speaker 4: and we're talking about report cards and grades do they
- 7:39Speaker 4: really matter?
- 7:40Speaker 3: So we had Alfie on the podcast a few times
- 7:42Speaker 3: last year talking about so many great things. Definitely worth
- 7:45Speaker 3: searching it up. In fact, we'll link to those podcasts
- 7:47Speaker 3: episodes because they were so good. Alfie is the author
- 7:49Speaker 3: of probably a dozen books, everything from Punished by Rewards
- 7:53Speaker 3: to Unconditional Parenting. He's written No Contest, Feel Bad Education,
- 7:58Speaker 3: The Myth of the spoil Child, The Homework Myth, and
- 8:01Speaker 3: a whole lot more. And we're talking grades today because
- 8:05Speaker 3: report card time has arrived and the emails are landing,
- 8:08Speaker 3: the report cards are arriving in the latter box. A
- 8:12Speaker 3: few years ago, one of our kids came home with
- 8:15Speaker 3: a report card in one of the schools that our
- 8:18Speaker 3: children have attended over the years, there was a report
- 8:20Speaker 3: card that included grades for efforts. So you didn't just
- 8:23Speaker 3: get a grade for how you actually performed. The teacher
- 8:25Speaker 3: gave you a grade for how hard you tried. And
- 8:29Speaker 3: at the time I was thinking, well, at least they're
- 8:32Speaker 3: acknowledging that not every kid's going to do super well
- 8:35Speaker 3: and get straight a's, but at least if they have
- 8:36Speaker 3: a go, they can get acknowledged that way. But as
- 8:39Speaker 3: it happened, our door who was trying her hardest, burst
- 8:42Speaker 3: into tears when she saw her report card. And then
- 8:45Speaker 3: sobbed into my shoulder, Dad, I even failed trying.
- 8:50Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly what's your.
- 8:51Speaker 3: Response when you hear a story like that?
- 8:54Speaker 2: Oh it's I mean, even without the particular proof of
- 8:58Speaker 2: the damaging effect anecdotal from your daughter. I mean, I've
- 9:03Speaker 2: been going around saying effort grades are a way you
- 9:05Speaker 2: can now fail even at trying. You get a high
- 9:09Speaker 2: you know, achievement grade and a low effort grade. You
- 9:12Speaker 2: know what does that tell you? Or the reverse a
- 9:14Speaker 2: high effort grade and a low achievement grade means you know, thanks,
- 9:18Speaker 2: thanks for making the effort even though you're too stupid
- 9:20Speaker 2: for it to do any good. I mean, there's no
- 9:22Speaker 2: way this turns out to be constructive effort grades. Look,
- 9:27Speaker 2: you're not going to fix something as inherently destructive as
- 9:30Speaker 2: grades by adding a different grade. You know at What
- 9:34Speaker 2: it does is its implicitly is it centers the problem
- 9:39Speaker 2: in the kid, so that the adults no longer have
- 9:42Speaker 2: to rethink the structure or the system, the curriculum, or
- 9:46Speaker 2: the pedagogy. They can say when a kid isn't making
- 9:49Speaker 2: an effort, well, that kid is failing at trying, so
- 9:52Speaker 2: we'll grade it with with effort. That way, you never
- 9:55Speaker 2: have to ask why are the kids not interested in this?
- 9:59Speaker 2: Could it have something to do with a task or
- 10:01Speaker 2: the way we're teaching, or the fact that kids have
- 10:03Speaker 2: no input, no decision making authority about what it is
- 10:07Speaker 2: they're doing. So kui bono is the Latin question. I
- 10:11Speaker 2: like to ask who benefits when you give kids effort grade?
- 10:14Speaker 2: And the question answers itself. It's the adults who no
- 10:17Speaker 2: longer have to reflect on their own practice, but just
- 10:20Speaker 2: try harder to evaluate and manipulate their children.
- 10:26Speaker 4: Wow.
- 10:26Speaker 3: Yeah, that hits hard, Alfie.
- 10:29Speaker 4: We've talked about the problems with grades and report cards.
- 10:33Speaker 4: I'm wondering if we can give some solutions. Report cards
- 10:37Speaker 4: are going to end up in people's inboxes or they
- 10:40Speaker 4: lettle boxes over the next few weeks. What approach would
- 10:42Speaker 4: you suggest parents take when that report cut arrives in
- 10:46Speaker 4: our home? Justin pretty much he doesn't even look at them.
- 10:49Speaker 4: I kind of feel like it's a little bit dismissive.
- 10:52Speaker 4: So I spend a bit of time with the kids
- 10:53Speaker 4: and we kind of read over it because they want
- 10:55Speaker 4: to share their achievements.
- 10:57Speaker 3: Well, well, I still talk to the kids about their
- 10:59Speaker 3: school experience, but I ask what they're finding, delight in,
- 11:01Speaker 3: what they're enjoying, what they're learning, what the processes are
- 11:04Speaker 3: to help them to to develop themselves. Rather than saying
- 11:08Speaker 3: what do you get on your report whereas you do
- 11:10Speaker 3: walk through the report card a little bit. But anyway
- 11:12Speaker 3: back to call this question now for you, how do
- 11:14Speaker 3: you think parents might navigate this time of year.
- 11:17Speaker 2: As invisible as possible, for as long as possible. If
- 11:20Speaker 2: you can get away with ignoring the report card completely, good,
- 11:24Speaker 2: do it. If that seems weird to the kid or
- 11:28Speaker 2: you can't bear it, yeah, then take the other approach
- 11:31Speaker 2: you've just suggested, which is, you know, talk about it briefly,
- 11:35Speaker 2: ask them questions, and move on. Never become more excited
- 11:42Speaker 2: about your kid with more approval and attention and love
- 11:45Speaker 2: and affection when the kid has gotten good grades, or
- 11:50Speaker 2: withdraw all of that, you know, and be all concerned
- 11:54Speaker 2: when they don't. When parents actually reward kids for good
- 11:58Speaker 2: report cards or punish them for bad report cards, they're
- 12:01Speaker 2: squaring the damage that you know, that's a reward for
- 12:05Speaker 2: a reward.
- 12:06Speaker 4: So Alphie, in light of the fact that we live
- 12:09Speaker 4: in the world that we live in right now, and
- 12:11Speaker 4: this is not going to change over now right, How
- 12:13Speaker 4: do we create an environment at home and for teachers
- 12:16Speaker 4: who are listening in the classroom that foster is a
- 12:18Speaker 4: desire to learn and a reduced interest in grades and scores.
- 12:22Speaker 2: Well, again, every time I answer a version of this question,
- 12:26Speaker 2: I have to push back on the premise of this
- 12:28Speaker 2: is the world we live in, et cetera. You know,
- 12:32Speaker 2: realism is profoundly conservative when it's framed that way as
- 12:37Speaker 2: a way of discouraging us from questioning the premise, which
- 12:40Speaker 2: is why do we have that system? And how do
- 12:42Speaker 2: we go about changing it? But in the meantime, there's
- 12:47Speaker 2: a couple of things we can do. First, is we
- 12:49Speaker 2: minimize the harm of anything like grades in all the
- 12:53Speaker 2: ways that I've been talking about here, both at home
- 12:55Speaker 2: and at school. Stop doing the bad stuff, or at
- 12:59Speaker 2: least dial it back as much as you can possibly
- 13:02Speaker 2: get away with, and then think about the good stuff.
- 13:06Speaker 2: And that looks different depending on whether you have little
- 13:08Speaker 2: kids or big kids, whether you're a parent or a
- 13:10Speaker 2: teacher or an administrator. But it opens up a whole
- 13:13Speaker 2: different conversation, a whole new book about what promotes and
- 13:18Speaker 2: sustains delight. How do we avoid killing the curiosity that
- 13:22Speaker 2: kids start out with. And in part it's about making
- 13:27Speaker 2: sure that schooling is not just about cramming forgettable facts
- 13:31Speaker 2: into short term memory. It's about asking deep, meaningful questions
- 13:39Speaker 2: and creating projects and problems to try to have some
- 13:43Speaker 2: answer there, not just practicing skills and isolation, not assessing
- 13:48Speaker 2: with tests or quizzes. Ever, because authentic assessment and there's
- 13:53Speaker 2: a whole library on that topic can allow teachers to
- 13:56Speaker 2: get a sense of what kids understand and where they
- 13:59Speaker 2: need help without every giving a test, because tests measure
- 14:02Speaker 2: what matters least, and they can have more emphasis on
- 14:09Speaker 2: collaboration in the classroom, where kids are learning with and
- 14:12Speaker 2: from one another most of the time, in pairs and
- 14:15Speaker 2: small groups. And finally, and here I'm trying to obviously
- 14:19Speaker 2: quickly summarize a great deal of stuff in a few words,
- 14:24Speaker 2: is the way we can sustain kid's excitement about learning
- 14:30Speaker 2: is by giving them more say about what they're learning
- 14:33Speaker 2: and how and when and with whom and why. The
- 14:38Speaker 2: classrooms where it's easiest to see that the kid's intrinsic
- 14:44Speaker 2: motivation is there are not just those without rewards and punishments, grades,
- 14:50Speaker 2: tests and so on. It's those where the kids not
- 14:54Speaker 2: only individually but as a community of learners are democratically
- 14:59Speaker 2: making decis about the topics they're going to address and
- 15:02Speaker 2: how they're going to address them. Because if I never
- 15:06Speaker 2: tire of pointing out, kids learn how to make good
- 15:09Speaker 2: decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.
- 15:16Speaker 3: I feel like we could just completely reinvent the school
- 15:19Speaker 3: system based on this conversation, and there's a whole lot
- 15:22Speaker 3: of work to do. Alfie Cone, Thank you so much.
- 15:25Speaker 3: What an absolute delight to be able to spend some
- 15:26Speaker 3: time with you again and learn from you and absorb
- 15:30Speaker 3: your ideas, your thoughts, your wisdom around reports for this
- 15:34Speaker 3: time of year where everyone's starting to get nervous about
- 15:36Speaker 3: what's going to happen. Hopefully this has changed people's attitudes substantially.
- 15:40Speaker 3: Great to be with you, Thank you so much.
- 15:43Speaker 2: Oh my pleasure. Nice to talk to you again.
- 15:45Speaker 3: Alfie dot org is where you find everything you need
- 15:48Speaker 3: to know about Alfie Cone, including his books. You'll find
- 15:51Speaker 3: them wherever you normally would buy your books, and you
- 15:53Speaker 3: can also find them at his website. That's Alfiekne dot org.
- 15:57Speaker 3: That's Cone k n Healthycne dot org. We really hope
- 16:04Speaker 3: that this podcast has given you something to think about,
- 16:07Speaker 3: really really insightful, really provocative, and I have to say,
- 16:12Speaker 3: I'm pretty happy with the way we're doing stuff.
- 16:15Speaker 4: It's interesting as we've taken a really huge step back
- 16:18Speaker 4: on report cards. They really don't play a huge part
- 16:20Speaker 4: in our day to day life. The kids' grades.
- 16:25Speaker 3: Actually, they've gone through the road. That's yeah, it's it's
- 16:28Speaker 3: been blown.
- 16:29Speaker 4: Away and they've come home so elated, and we don't
- 16:32Speaker 4: push them to do their homework.
- 16:34Speaker 3: And you know what we do when they come home
- 16:35Speaker 3: with a good grade, We say, how does that feel?
- 16:38Speaker 3: And what did you do to get that grade? And
- 16:41Speaker 3: what do you feel when you're in that class? How
- 16:43Speaker 3: are you enjoying the class like That's the that's the
- 16:46Speaker 3: crux of it, isn't it how much you enjoying it?
- 16:48Speaker 3: Because that's getting into that intrinsic motivation. And then what
- 16:51Speaker 3: did you do to get that grade? And how does
- 16:54Speaker 3: it feel to get a grade like that? It's just
- 16:56Speaker 3: a really it's such a low pressure response.
- 17:01Speaker 4: Well, and we're just seeing their intrinsic motivation to learn
- 17:05Speaker 4: increase as we take all the pressure off them from
- 17:08Speaker 4: our end at least to just enjoy their learning process.
- 17:13Speaker 3: And two, I know our time is up, but two
- 17:14Speaker 3: really quick examples. When our second daughter was finishing high
- 17:17Speaker 3: school doing her year twelve exams from the start of
- 17:20Speaker 3: year twelve, we said, there's no pressure from us. Do
- 17:23Speaker 3: whatever you need to do, and we will support you
- 17:25Speaker 3: and encourage you so long as you know what the
- 17:27Speaker 3: expectation is once you finish high school that you're either
- 17:29Speaker 3: earning full time or learning full time. Just enjoy your
- 17:32Speaker 3: twelve and spend time with your friends and do whatever
- 17:36Speaker 3: you feel you need to educationally. And she ended up
- 17:39Speaker 3: getting a phenomenal score even though we were not once,
- 17:43Speaker 3: not a single time throughout all of your twelve did
- 17:44Speaker 3: we say, hey, you need to do some study. No once,
- 17:47Speaker 3: And the same with our daughter who's now going into
- 17:49Speaker 3: year twelve. She's pretty much just picked up a whole
- 17:52Speaker 3: lot of not quite but almost straight a's in her
- 17:54Speaker 3: report card, and we're not interested in it, but we're
- 17:57Speaker 3: delighted for her because she's loving the exp sperience and
- 18:00Speaker 3: she's actually enjoying her learning. We've told her pick that
- 18:03Speaker 3: she was worried about subjects that are going to get
- 18:04Speaker 3: scaled down, and we said, forget about it, don't worry
- 18:07Speaker 3: pick subjects you're going to like, and she's just having
- 18:10Speaker 3: a ball, isn't she.
- 18:10Speaker 4: It's interesting before we'd had that conversation with her, though,
- 18:13Speaker 4: she the anxiety that she was feeling because she was
- 18:16Speaker 4: working with subjects that she thought she had to do,
- 18:19Speaker 4: she had to do, and the just the pressure that
- 18:23Speaker 4: she was putting on herself to perform because she picked
- 18:27Speaker 4: those high ranking subjects, and as soon as she let
- 18:30Speaker 4: go of them and picked the things that she liked,
- 18:32Speaker 4: we've literally seen a different child.
- 18:34Speaker 3: The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rowland from
- 18:37Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer, and if
- 18:39Speaker 3: you'd like marfl about Alfie Cone, visit Alfie Cone with
- 18:42Speaker 3: a Kkohn dot org and for all of our stuff
- 18:46Speaker 3: Happy families dot com dot a u