When I read the editorial in last week’s Valley News about Harvard awarding too many As, I had a flashback to my first year as principal at Telstar Regional High School in Bethel, Maine.
As I sat in my office in early November poring over the first quarter computer printouts of the grade distributions for each teacher, I was stunned to see that every student except one in Tim Kersey’s highest-level physics class had an A. When I examined the grades in Kersey’s other classes, I discovered that all but a handful had an A. Something was clearly amiss.
I had a favorable impression of Tim Kersey from my observation of one of his classes. His students were engaged when he lectured, and they clearly loved the labs he set up. His classroom reflected his upbeat personality. Small orbs hung from the ceiling representing various planets, and all kinds of student projects were scattered throughout the room. Cartoons of Peanuts characters spouting various physics formulas in their word balloons hung on the wall including a prominent picture of Snoopy declaring “Physics is Phun” as he danced merrily with Woodstock.
But after looking at his students’ first quarter grades, I surmised that Tim might have been overly concerned with making sure his students had “Phun” at the expense of learning the physics Snoopy extolled.
The next day after the buses left, when I went to Kersey’s classroom for our meeting to discuss his inflated grades, he was setting up a lab for one of his students. Once he got the student working independently, he beckoned me to join him in the cluttered science preparation room that adjoined his classroom. He cleared some workbooks from a chair in the cramped space and apologized for delaying me. I cleared a spot on the desk and unfurled my computer printouts so he could see them.
“I wanted to talk to you about your first quarter grades. First, I noticed that all of your students except one got As in your physics class…” Before I could finish my list of concerns about the grades in other classes Tim interjected, his voice filled with dismay
“I know, I feel bad about that. I really expected everyone to earn an A the first marking period, but one of the students didn’t want to come in at lunch or after school to re-do a lab for an A so I had to give him what he deserved.”
I was speechless. He went on,
“See, I expect all my students to earn As because I expect all of them to learn everything I teach them. If they don’t get 100 on a quiz or science lab, I let them come in at lunch period or after school — like Gary is doing today — to re-do their work and give me a chance to explain it if they still don’t get it. I give all my students two chances to make up the work if they want to earn an A … and, as you can see, most students take advantage of the chance to do that.”
“But don’t the kids who get As the first time resent the fact that the other kids get the same grade?”
“No! The kids all help each other out,” Kersey said. “It drives me crazy that other teachers don’t use this method. I mean after all, aren’t we supposed to be making sure that the kids learn everything we teach them? Shouldn’t we expect them to get 100% on everything if we’re teaching well?”
Tim’s explanation resonated because he was using the mastery-learning techniques I attempted to put in place with my 8th grade math students in Philadelphia with a self-paced learning package I devised. I found it daunting work, and years later I had accepted the conventional wisdom that was it impossible to bring mastery learning to scale, especially given the public’s fixation on the bell curve paradigm used in grading that requires that students be sorted and selected on the basis of “ability.”
But in an era of Khan Academy, AI instruction and data warehousing, mastery learning could be scaled. Moreover, in an era of licensing, internships and apprenticeships, the bell curve may be losing its traction. Indeed, today we expect mastery in all the services we receive as consumers and don’t accept anything less than mastery on the tests used to issue licenses and certifications. The driver’s tests, for example, are mastery tests. Do you want to share the road with someone lacking a license proving their mastery? And mastery tests are widely used to credential auto mechanics, attorneys, cosmetologists, teachers, medical providers, tradesmen, doctors, and the Ph.D.s who teach at Harvard and give “too many As.”
The awards Kersey won in Maine later in his career validated his approach to teaching and his commitment to all his students. He didn’t call the student who fell short on a quiz or lab a “failure.” He gave them a second chance and when they succeeded the second or third time, he gave them the same grade as the student who scored 100% the first time. The same way many of us need two tries to pass the driver test; some attorneys need several attempts to pass the bar examination, and the same way some electricians and plumbers needed longer apprenticeships than others to get their license.
I am not surprised that students who got into Harvard earned high grades. I am disappointed that we have not abandoned the bell curve mentality that assumes all students learn at the same rate and in the same way. Given enough time and enough support, as Tim Kersey’s students illustrated, all children can learn.
Wayne Gersen is a retired public school administrator. He lives in Etna.