In my observation, today's student is learning from experience that achievement, particularly individual achievement, may not matter for them. They get a year older, take more tests and move to the next grade with their age group. Pressure is on teachers to produce good, consistently good results on the high stakes tests of their students. Administrators know that funding and jobs depend upon test results. Students see a world around them where those who achieve due to hard work are invisible; while the visible holders of wealth are famous due to their celebrity, audacity, or physical prowess.
I'm not supporting retention over social promotion. I am saying it is not a simple binary choice as some would suggest. There must be another option? Educational research is rich and deep on both sides of the retention debate. It is also rich and deep with regard to the mistaken assumption that all children should be placed on a conveyor belt that has one speed and lasts twelve mind-numbing years. So why do we continue to use the conveyor belt? It is all we know. It worked for us (depending upon how one defines "worked"). To do something else would mean accepting far too many variables, questioning too many time-honored practices, raise questions of equality versus equity; and, perish the thought, possibly cost more in the short term regardless of long term gain.
Or, perhaps the something else means embracing a growth mindset. In future posts I will reflect on my experience as a student. Not only do I support growth mindset theory, but I suggest that it has deep roots in the 20th century and even the earliest days of public education. In my next post, we return to Tom's situation in the fourth grade of the present, the high stakes testing era, where regardless of test performance, children learn a fixed mindset.
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