Performance Scores Must Be Honest

Performance in a class is defined as a figure or letter representing the total number of marks awarded in an examination or competition and signifies a person’s score. Marks must be true and that for us is the biggest challenge today.

In our quest to maybe encourage the student to perform or show that we as teachers are delivering better and to build the brand of the school where parents feel their students deliver better... the marking system is used and I dare say abused. We have today a system where we do not wish to hold back or what some say 'fail' a student and deny the promotion to the next class. The merit list is made only from performance scores...yet the schools and colleges often fail to spot the budding talent. Is the performance score/marks the only way to help an individual deliver? Is it a true measure of the capacity and capability of the student?

What is beyond 100% marks?

When we motivate by giving marks or scores for performance, we also end up harming the ones who are given low scores. The losers in the marking system are perhaps many more than the winners. Yes, you are justified in saying that we do need a system/measure to judge performance and marks is one such way to measure the learning outcome in the individual. It is imperative that we look at the 'sanctity' of the system and not get carried away by the simple need to win people with false promises. Of late in my travels and meetings with school heads, I had a meeting with the head of a school and she was very honest to say 'we have to give marks to keep parents happy, if we are strict with marking, the student scores fall, parents than feel that the school is not delivering!'

We today have gone a step ahead and have started publishing dubious listings and performance ladder for schools. The annual listing, the much awaited media hype and the sensationalism is all harming the education process, more than helping. Good work itself outshines the 'good word' sold to us by media hype. We may come to the top of the mind recall by using the annual media listings, however like a newspaper the value of the listings is very short lived. End of the day, it is good work that will lay the foundation of growth and development of young people with character. Today, it seems 'business first' and like the yawning gap between haves and have nots, the so called meritocracy is really killing learning and doing more harm as it is often clouded with a business motive.

"Some schools are liberal in giving marks while others are not. Will I not suffer on account of strict marking by the school of my child?" ~ a traumatised parent 

The hypothetical answer to this question - No student would suffer because of strict marking or benefit from lenient marking as the Marking Scheme for all Question Papers in all major subjects are being provided by the Board and the teachers are being directed to adhere to the Marking Scheme in each subject. However, to avoid such apprehensions CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education, India) has also undertaken a systematic collection, analysis and moderation of ‘Evidence of Assessment’ by analysing sample answers scripts, anecdotal records, student portfolios and teachers’ records. This exercise ensures that school based assessment is of acceptable quality.

Like the CBSE, the other national and state boards too have a policy and use various methods to correct the bias if any. To err is human, and this is the anomaly and the challenge in itself. The methods of providing grades instead of marks does seem a better way... the debate will go on and on! What is most imperative is that the assessment method should not be prone to mere individual value judgements.

National Foundation of Education Research tries to explain 'What do test scores mean?'
Many people will remember test scores from their school days such as ‘7 out of 10’ for a primary school spelling test, or ‘63%’ for one of their secondary school exams. Such scores are readily understandable and are useful in indicating what proportion of the total marks a person has gained, but these scores do not account for factors such as how hard the test is, where a person stands in relation to other people, and the margin of error in the test score. As another example, in a school test such as mathematics or English, we would not know how well the pupil is performing against National Curriculum measures.

Standardised scores are more useful measures than raw scores (the number of questions answered correctly) and there are reasons why such scores are normally used. The measure of the spread of scores is called the 'standard deviation' and this is usually set  for educational attainment and ability tests, and for many other tests. This means that, irrespective of the difficulty of the test, the students are given marks on a rationalised scale. This may help correct the individual bias in marking and is often preferred by the national and state level boards. Further the practice of external examiners, the random testing, the other secure methods all aim to remove the human bias. This happens at a later stage in the life of a student, what about he early years when the child is not a 'teacher's favourite' or not the most well behaved and is marked in very random manner?

On one hand marks may be a way to encourage competition, these on the other could also dampen the spirit of the low scoring students. The teacher must look at the method adopted very carefully and ensure that the marking is most honest, if this be the only way to measure the performance of a individual. There are countless stories of individuals who get poor performance scores, go on to succeed in life, become inventors, innovators and bring about a revolution in thought. The human mind is very complex, and this is the biggest challenge and will remain one always.

Another interesting debate evaluates "Should Student Test Scores Be Used to Evaluate Teachers?"
How much to credit—and blame—teachers for student performance is an issue that continues to confound the education field. To what extent is each student's progress directly attributable to the teacher's efforts? What other factors can determine a student's success? Is there a way to measure each factor separately, including the teacher's influence?

To clarify: We should focus on gains in test scores, not end-of-year scores. Any estimate of how much the student has improved while in the teacher's class must take into account the fact that students start at different points. We want to know how much a teacher contributes to student growth during the time students are in that teacher's classroom.

While such student-achievement gains are imperfect measures, the same is true of all measures. The marks given by the teacher are sacrosanct, are looked as the ultimate reflection of a students ability. It is most important that the teacher be accountable and their ability too is reflected in the child's performance. Perhaps the answer lies in giving due weight-age to performance of an individual as well as the ability of the teacher to bring about an improvement in the quality of learning and not just a measure of teaching efficiency in a classroom. If a teacher delivers a lessons and the child is supposed to comprehend, am sure both play an important role and will influence the final marks in the class. 

Strategies to Check Student Learning in the Classroom  IOWA State University, Centre of Learning and Teaching has published a good read on Classroom Assessment Techniques.  The simple way of assessing a person with marks is not really the best method, but is widely used as it is most practical and teachers per se are supposed to have the moral authority to deliver the value judgement.

Pic courtesy - The Fabindia School

If marks be the evidence of assessment, these must be most honest and this is where we as teachers need to be very careful. 
When doing our corrections, we often have the pressure of time, the lack of ability to comprehend the answer the student wishes to convey, the external environment around us and even our mental makeup on the day of corrections! 

You must reflect and do your best to be most honest, the performance mark must be used most judiciously to convey a message to the student as well as the family that puts in everything to help the child grow and succeed in life. 

"This is the struggle of today's system. Everyone thinks he/she is an educationist. But no one bothers to bring enjoyment of learning to their students. The curse comes from the Appraisals attached to money rather than appreciation in terms of recognition. Marks have a way to build certain documents for schools, but they tie us up in knots when it comes to following methodology of awarding them. 

CBSE has taught me one thing via corrections and that is to be at the child's side when it comes to correction. If we can come down to their level of teaching we should come down to their level of correction too. 

Continuous Assessments are actually the bane because they have warped people's thinking. Objectivity is a far cry and teachers end up being confused rather than being clear because they are not left on their own to decide how to judge! 

I agree with you that marking system gives out more losers than winners. Thank you for taking such pains to reveal the ugly as well as the fairer side of the system." 

~ Deepika Tandon, Principal, The Fabindia School, Bali Rajasthan - 306701, India

Performance scores must be used as true motivator and not a mere measure. The joy of learning and succeeding must not be robbed by the process of marking. Yes, it is a great feeling to top a class, it is only one person who will top, is that the only way to run the race of life? 

We must not simply see the scores at a point of time, but over a period of time and this is where we will find value and be able to develop a strategy to build individual performance. Value judgements in life are indeed clouded with bias and it is time the sanctity of the system is maintained. The real teacher will alone stand up and help the student grow in life, way beyond just gaining by high marks in a classroom. This will help make up for the lack of belief we have in the integrity of the performance scores.

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The author of the article Sandeep Dutt takes the onus of the content and the opinions expressed are his alone. You may please email the author on sd@ebd.in for comments if any. For more about the author www.sandeepdutt.com

Disclaimer: Images have been sourced with the help of Google User Content online and this blog claims no design or copyright please

Search For My Haven Of Freedom

If 'education is freedom with responsibility' it is about time we ensured the school environment provides the freedom to deliver education. The space is devoid of fear and favour, this alone will help in the personal and social development of our children.

Where The Mind Is Without Fear
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rabindranath Tagore, the greatest writer in modern Indian literature, Bengali poet, novelist, educator, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, has very beautifully eulogised freedom at school. The poem is  read as a prayer in many schools and from me personally this is the 'haven of freedom' a school should be.

Image courtesy pasadenaus.org
Overall, schools are one of the safest places children can be. However, some schools have problems, such as bullying and theft, which make them less secure. These problems make students and educators feel less safe, and it makes it harder for students to learn and for teachers to do their jobs. There are still bigger challenges like shooting, kidnapping and using children as a means of meeting evil designs of terror groups. Our children are soft targets and when we have them at school we feel they are in a safe space or their haven.
Look at what is happening in the world around us, first the Pakistani Taliban bombed or burned over 1,000 schools. Then they shot Malala Yousafzai, the teenage advocate for girls’ rights. But on Tuesday the 16th of December, the Taliban took their war on education to a ruthless new low with an assault on a crowded school in Peshawar that killed 145 people — 132 of them uniformed schoolchildren — in the deadliest single attack in the group’s history.

"The tragedy that occurred in Pakistan, makes me reflect on some of our own attitudes to the issues highlighted by this ghastly event. As a Head of School, one nightmare that constantly haunted me was exactly the possibility of such an event occurring on my watch. At Welham Boys, I had, in fact, commissioned security analysts from Mahindra’s Security think tank to assess our risk situation and to suggest measures to tackle these risks. 

What bemused me was the reaction of many parents, students and alumni. I was constantly accused of having “gone over the top”, of having reduced the school to a fortress or even jail, of having taken away the entire spirit of freedom that a school should exude. Moreover, it was not uncommon for angry parents and alumni to get into serious altercations with the guards who had asked them to fill in their particulars in the register at the gate. They considered this highly demeaning. 

Whilst all that these angry folk said may have been true, the question that deserves to be debated, is whether such measures (security cameras, explosive –sniffer dogs, visitors registering at the gate etc) were necessary. Many argued that If some terrorists wanted to hurt us , we , as a school could never stop them anyway. I argued that at least we could try, and in the process buy ourselves some time to get the children to safety, and summon help. Many felt that I was being “alarmist”. 

Pakistan’s tragedy should perhaps make us stop and think. Given the times we live in, will we not have to get used to being ”inconvenienced” on various occasions and at various places? Yes, schools should ideally be free of all the accoutrements of “security”. But is that realistic or desirable these days? "

~ Dev Lahiri, former Principal, Welham Boys School, Dehradun, India

What can a parent do? What does a parent need to know? What should a parent look for related to school safety at their child’s school?

Ken Trump, President of National School Safety and Security Services, created a list of 10 practical things parents can do to assess school security and emergency/crisis preparedness from a parent’s perspective specifically for parents.  Security and emergency preparedness measures should be balanced with strong violence prevention and intervention programs. Along with  a well-disciplined and positive school climate, these elements of a comprehensive safe schools approach can play critical roles in making schools safe.

The school is the key environment for the personal and social development of a child, it is most imperative that we need to ensure that this 'ecosystem' has a sanctity of its' own. We lay emphasis on a green school, a clean school... the happiness of the child is at risk with the inherent need for security in the school campus.

Every school should have crisis teams that review their plans regularly, he said, and staff members who greet and challenge every person who comes to the door. They should have locked doors, safety drills and parents who know where to find their kids, just in case the unthinkable happens.

Schools need counselors, psychologists and officers building relationships with kids, because they are the best line of defense, Trump said.

Image courtesy - lymaraschool.org

'What really makes schools safer?' An article written by Jamie Gumbrecht, CNN goes on to state...Those who know the world of school security are already predicting what comes next: A strong reaction -- maybe an overreaction -- by parents, schools and legislators who want to take action. Politicians will be elected on platforms of school safety. Vendors will turn up with technology and security plans to sell. Schools will rewrite their crisis plans and run extra drills. goes further to ask, Is there no safe place?' "As they cut back on the human element, they've tried to compensate by leaning on and pointing to physical security measures, ... They love to say 'We have cameras.' "

Schools work to prevent problems through community building, fostering respect, inclusion, fairness and equity. We need to respect the school space if we want to have a civilised society. The history of human evolution is replete with violence and the urge to dominate by force. This psyche itself is a major challenge. Today beyond the threats from within like bullying, physical abuse, emotional torture... the external pressure, the paranoia that results are indeed highlighted by The Nobel Peace Prize 2014 being awarded jointly to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".

The world has been shaken up with the brute violence like shootings in school, Boko Haram kidnappings, killing of innocent children by violence and design. Traditionally we looked at school safety from ensuring our children are 'accident safe' and their journey to school is safe too. Today the monster of terrorism and the brutal design of radicals has threatened the school space even more. The fear psychosis will not only push us to take recourse to policing and security but more than that will need counselling and great efforts to soothe the terror stricken minds of the children of the world.

The author  Sandeep Dutt takes the onus of the content and the opinions expressed are his alone. You may please email the author on sd@ebd.in for comments if any. For more about the author www.sandeepdutt.com

Disclaimer: Images have been sourced  from  Google User Content online and this blog claims no design or copyright please.
Special thank you to Mr Dev Lahiri who so eloquently put down his thoughts and helped shape this blog post.