By Colyne Souriau, Nantes Université
https://flic.kr/p/raZhk3
“Assessment means – sooner or later – creating hierarchies of excellence that determine progress through the curriculum, selection for entry into secondary school, guidance toward various types of studies, certification prior to entering the job market, and often hiring. Assessment also means prioritizing a certain way of being in the classroom and in the world, valuing forms and standards of excellence, and defining a model student” (Perrenoud, 1998).
The French system (and perhaps this holds true across Europe) follows this definition. From the very start of their academic journey, students are confronted with a form of symbolic violence: that of numerical grades, which will follow them throughout their studies. If you go into an auditorium, I bet one of the first questions students ask will be about the assessment methods (when these haven’t been specified). Sometimes students even lose interest if an assignment isn’t graded. The goal is not to learn or reinforce knowledge, but to move on to the next grade (at least in middle school).
According to Vogler (1996), during the first half of the 20th century, schools graded, disciplined, and certified students. The traditional form of assessment served three functions: To reward or punish students for their work and behavior. Grades reward effort or punish laziness. Ranking and comparing: identifying the “best” and fostering healthy competition. Ranking students and comparing them allows for assigning them a value and determining merit. This function of value in the eyes of peers has a profound meaning, I’m thinking in particular of students labelled of “dumb” stuck to them throughout their school years. Of all those students for whom getting a bad grade defined their level of intelligence at a certain time. Today we talk about being “more or less academically inclined” to sugarcoat it, but the bottom line remains the same: with every exam, stress and nerves intensify, and being evaluated is associate with intellectual performance… Or ability to spew theoretical knowledge.
In middle school or even later, we can notice when test papers are returned, students talk among themselves a lot to find out what grade others received. How can we move away from this “normative” view?
The last function: informing parents and school authorities about students’ academic performance and making decisions regarding their educational path. I am thinking in particular of the German system, where educational choices are made early after four years of elementary school; children, together with their parents and teachers, choose the most appropriate educational path from among:
– the Hauptschule, a school that bridges primary school and vocational training primarily in the trades offering simpler courses.
– the Realschule, which provides a general, practical education and includes several internships during the last two years.
– the Gymnasium, which prepares students for higher education.
Some schools in the canton of Geneva have replaced numerical grades with qualitative assessments of students’ skills and learning targets. In the canton of Vaud, grades and averages were gradually phased out and replaced by a five-level competency scale. However, these schools subsequently reverted to using numerical grades. Why? What went wrong?
