The sun was just rising one Monday morning in February as I rode the 7:15am bus on my way to Dawson. My phone light woke my sleepy eyes as I scrolled through last minute notes, preparing for my chemistry of solutions test that day. Relax, I reassured myself, You’re going to do well. At the top of my screen, a small orange flower icon appeared. I slid down the Omnivox notification to read: Your R Score has been recalculated. I got a mini heart attack, eyes now fully awake, ready to find this new information; I just about fell out of my seat. I opened the Final Grades and R Score menu to feast my eyes upon my first R score: a 30.885!
I felt happy with my score, although I didn’t know how much happiness I should’ve felt. I considered my academic performance from last semester and thought I was in great standing, but I wasn’t sure if I should have celebrated. The mistake came when I texted a friend to ask how she scored. She exclaimed that she got a 38.3! I held back a tear. The feeling of curiosity and regret snowballed into marching to school with my life’s purpose set forth to find all of my friends one by one and ask them how they scored, all of their answers ranging from 32-36.
Mission complete. I was on the low end of a health student’s R score range.
My eyes felt tired again. I was staring at my future being spelled out by every grade I’ve received. I wondered how it was possible to improve from here. An enormous pressure was growing inside of me to get perfect grades from now until I exit CEGEP because it was the only way science programs in university would notice me in the sea of numbers.
Why did I start comparing myself to my friends? There’s a level of competitiveness in school that could be closely matched to that of McDonald’s and Tim Hortons in terms of their coffee. It’s really 50/50, but no one’s counting. Telling my mother about my score was not a viable option. First of all, she’d freak. Second of all, I’d have to go through the labour of explaining how the R score works and what it is, when I’m not even sure myself. So I did some digging.
The academic advising page on Vanier College’s site indicates that the R score is based on two components, with the most alarming one being that it bases its value on “how well, on average, all the Quebec students in the course or group of courses performed in their compulsory Secondary 4 and Secondary 5 courses.”
Using our grades from 2-3 years ago seems like an inappropriate way to be determining success. Is it to say that my R score will forever be tainted by the 66% I received for my sec 4 MEES mathematics grade? I’m not too sure about that––the R score is a mysterious calculation. However, I do know that the R score is used to weigh a student’s progress against that of other students in a fashion similar to how a phys. ed teacher would tell girls to run straight down a track as fast as they could, then tell boys to run zig zag along the same track because of their superior strength, to test both groups’ speed. It also doesn’t help that class averages are also commonly expected by students, from their teachers, to have a tangible way to judge their own marks in relation to their peers. Why not judge your own marks in relation to the material you’ve learned thus far? Finland, the country that’s been crowned the happiest country in the world for 3 years, according to Forbes, is doing just that.
The Los Angeles Times offers us some insight on how Finland is so successful in terms of their happiness, specifically in school. Their success is based on equity and community and is the preferred basis over rewarding excellence only to bright minds, which is what North America does. Focusing on sportsmanship paints a brighter classroom environment, where helping others out is the best thing to do, no questions asked. This is generally a fairer way to treat students and teachers alike, when we are often feeling trapped and clustered in school for almost the entirety of adolescence. Plus, Finland’s grading system does not set students up against each other to compete with the class average, nor do the grades reflect directly on the teacher’s ability to teach.
My first report card in high school came in and I was only 13 years old. Despite most grades being above 85, my mother could not take her fury off the fact that I received a 67% in French while the class average sat at a precariously high 76%. Parent teacher interviews brought me solace when my phys. ed teacher reassuringly advised that “you have to have people above and below the average to make an average.”
Teachers play the single most important role in education and are the most essential figures in learning everywhere. My knowledge of our solar system (minus Pluto), the waxing and waning of the moon, discovering the nine times table trick on your fingers, watching YouTube, how to read a chapter book, and how to spell the word Wed-nes-day were all attributable to the facts, lessons, and stories that my teachers have taught me, but only in elementary school. Without teachers, I’m not sure how society and the economy would function, never mind school. There’s a term in environmental ecosystems for a species like this, known as the ‘keystone species’. If it is removed from the ecosystem, the entire ecosystem crumbles, leaving a mess of non-livable conditions in its wake.
This puts an insurmountable weight on teacher’s shoulders to keep each student happy and engaged with the material they’re teaching. Natasha Goodz, a recent graduate from McGill University’s department of education agrees with this idea and supposes that “a lot of the pressure comes from the teachers themselves […] knowing that they have so much responsibility in shaping their [students] into the people they’re going to be.” Of course, shaping kids through the educational system reigns through, most of the time, in the cases of successful business men, directors, all types of coaches, and even other teachers. They would not be working in their respective careers if it weren’t for the teachers who taught them the trick of the trade in the first place.
The difficult part is getting students to the point where they become motivated to be the best little engineer they could ever want to be. Often times, teachers use what is known as operant conditioning to encourage their students through positive reinforcements. This conditioning works with rewards and punishments to increase or, contrarily, decrease, a particular behaviour. When students do their homework, a teacher can condition their students to expect a Kahoot game with prizes for the winners! When teachers notice a lack in participation and work habits, they can condition the class to expect a pop quiz when homework is incomplete. Then homework will likely be done in the future to avoid such an event to occur again.
I was definitely no fan of my sec 5 physics teacher’s conditioning method. It was difficult to feel any motivation when he often expressed us as being failures very pointedly with “The initial velocity of the rock falling vertically in free fall is…? Come on, you should know by now that it’s the same number you’ll see on your final grade: zero!”
As jokes or not, I wasn’t laughing. There must have been a better way to get us understanding a simple physic concept.
Natasha explains that the best way to get students engaged and to feel motivated is by creating relevance with things that actually matter to them. “If it’s fun, exciting, and has meaning to it, they’re going to learn more,” she states.
A happy class environment is magnified by motivation. I can remember the first time my biology II teacher recommended browsing Science Magazine last semester for a piece of reading outside of the course requirements because the articles were “interesting and relevant.” For a few split seconds, I actually considered it. Then a resounding groan hit the class.
According to Caitrin Blake from Resilient Educator, reward-driven motivation is one of two types of motivation known as extrinsic motivation, the other type being intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation helps students become more driven and competitive because they know that they will receive something from their work. Blake states that if this reward is removed, students’ interest “diminishes entirely.”
Without skipping a beat, the bio teacher recognized how little her students were motivated to read any articles because it posed ostensibly no benefit if we did nor any threat if we didn’t. So she did what all teachers would do to get their students to do something they’re unwilling to do: if we read an article, we’re granted bonus marks. A reward!
Ironically, the lack of interest is interesting because it begs the question that all students should consider: Why is this a field of study that I’m interested in & what will I make of it in the future?
Having little value for a field of study but nevertheless working for excellent grades stems from a mindset of setting performance goals rather than learning goals (Ambrose et al. 72). For example, physics makes me confused & afraid for the outcome of my grade. I’ve joined the “do well enough just to pass” performance goal. I’m being extrinsically motivated by the desire to be accepted into a science-related field in university. But the same goal cannot be applied to my interest & enjoyment in learning the piano. There are no passing grades or fear of failure. It’s intrinsic motivation––the desire to learn & set learning goals––that keeps me practicing.
I’m sure by now you’ve noticed that extrinsic motivation creates a disparity between people who have a passion for fundamental learning and application of knowledge and people who absorb facts and calculations to throw them onto paper for a numerical grade. It teaches students that success, in its naked form, is only a reward.
By nature, animals crave rewards. Think of the last time you had a piece of chocolate. You probably ate it for more than its delicious taste and nutritional benefits. Chocolate contains the key ingredient tyrosine which is the component of the neurotransmitter dopamine, linked to the reward and pleasure response centre of the brain. When the dopamine pathway of the brain is activated, the brain searches for the source of that dopamine spike again, making you crave more chocolate.
That’s why extrinsic motivation works. It gets the brain recognizing that getting good grades is a good thing and will elicit a release of dopamine in the brain. It’s not as direct as a shot of chocolate cake, but it’s similar in the way you crave to perform at the peak of your abilities for the best grades possible.
How then can we find enjoyment in the subjects we learn to fuel our own intrinsic motivation? Do classes need to focus less on grades and more on the beauty and nature of a subject to get students to be truly appreciative of the subject? It’s a tough balance and we haven’t quite reached it yet. Perhaps in a future decade, we’ll make the gradual switch to a school system where grades don’t have to be feared. I’ll be able to sit back in my comfy bus seat to check my phone for the notification that my own child’s success points have been stacked to 52C.r9, whatever that means. No matter the outcome, I’ll throw a pizza party to celebrate because where grades can be found, happiness lurks.
Works Cited
Ambrose et al. How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010. Print.
Blake, Caitrin. “Cultivating Motivation: How To Help Students Love Learning.” Resilient Educator. Resilient Educator, 2 Dec. 2019. Web. 11 Mar. 2020. https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/cultivating-student-motivation/
Bloom, Laura Begley. “Ranked: The 20 Happiest Countries In The World.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 28 Apr. 2020, www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2020/03/20/ranked-20-happiest-countries-2020/.
McLeod, Saul A. “Operant Conditioning.” Simply Psychology. Simply Psychology, 21 Aug. 2018. Web. 11 Mar. 2020. https://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html
Ollila, Jorma. “Op-Ed: Why Finland Comes out on Top on Happiness and More.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 7 Apr. 2019. Web. 11 Mar. 2020. www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-ollila-finland-happiness-20190407-story.html
ERKANE. “Serotonin & Dopamine: The Neurological Benefits of Chocolate.” Global Food Health and Society, 28 Oct. 2018. Web. 3 May 2020. web.colby.edu/st297-global18/2018/10/28/serotonin-dopamine-the-neurological-benefits-of-chocolate/.
Shore, Rebecca. Developing Young Minds: From Conception to Kindergarten. Maryland, London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Print.
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