Did you understand the concept of "grades" as a kid?

[SchrodingersMeerkat]

I never really understood that getting an "F" or a "D" was a bad thing until I was in high school. I was homeschooled for high school and went to a credit recovery program. So the traditional high school experience I never had but I did eventually understand that an "A" was good and an "F" was bad by eighth or ninth grade.

But before then, I never understood why other kids were so upset or ecstatic over a letter on their paper. They could write whatever letter they wanted on it when they got home. I needed something tangible to let me know I had done what was expected of me. I don't remember much of my early childhood, but I do remember some lady from my preschool coming over to the house to "work with me". I wonder if she used some ABA-esque techniques with me.

My mom did try behavior charts and the like when I was younger but eventually stopped using them and says she stopped because all it does is train kids to seek a reward for everything instead of internal satisfaction. I could only experience internal satisfaction if it was something I wanted to do for MYSELF and not something someone else wanted me to do. But having any kind of letter on a paper or project wasn't reinforcing. Especially when most of the time, I didn't want to do the paper or project in the first place.

 

[onlything]

I never really understood that getting an "F" or a "D" was a bad thing until I was in high school. I was homeschooled for high school and went to a credit recovery program. So the traditional high school experience I never had but I did eventually understand that an "A" was good and an "F" was bad by eighth or ninth grade.

But before then, I never understood why other kids were so upset or ecstatic over a letter on their paper. They could write whatever letter they wanted on it when they got home. I needed something tangible to let me know I had done what was expected of me. I don't remember much of my early childhood, but I do remember some lady from my preschool coming over to the house to "work with me". I wonder if she used some ABA-esque techniques with me.

My mom did try behavior charts and the like when I was younger but eventually stopped using them and says she stopped because all it does is train kids to seek a reward for everything instead of internal satisfaction. I could only experience internal satisfaction if it was something I wanted to do for MYSELF and not something someone else wanted me to do. But having any kind of letter on a paper or project wasn't reinforcing. Especially when most of the time, I didn't want to do the paper or project in the first place.

My situation may be somewhat different because I didn't have letter, instead there were first descriptive grade like 'good', 'very good' etc. in lower grades, then numbers from 1 to 6 with 6 being the highest grade. I found the numbers easier to understand than words, though I have gathered my motivation to get higher by watching my parents' reactions to grades. After some time I became one of these 'upset' kids that I couldn't understand before, though I would have full blown panic attack after a good grade. Hard for me to say why, I didn't get much satisfaction from it myself. Probably because I knew that my parents did.
To think, it may have been connected to a sense of satisfaction. For me, 4 was a pat on the head, 5 - a smile, and 6 - a 'good job' and I was desperate for these things.
At some point it stopped to matter, really, and in the end it was only a habit of being prepared. Not much else.

 

[dragoncat16]

I was always super competitive in school and if I got less than the best grade in the class, I was disappointed. I don't think I would have tried as hard if I didn't have others around to compete with.

 

[Streetwise]

To me education represented trauma and I valued grades as I hoped it meant spending more time with my mother It had even less value because I learn by pictures so letters just aren't as important to me

 

[Crossbreed]

I knew of their systemic value, but correctly understanding the material was more important to me than striving to maintain straight A's. This motivation tended to drive my grades up, anyway. If I misunderstood a concept, I might have gotten a bad grade on a particular pop quiz, but once corrected, the correction stuck.

 

[Flinty]

Very well, and enough to know that even C's were not acceptable in my household.

 

[Crossbreed]

...even C's were not acceptable in my household.

For my kids, C's were okay if it wasn't their strongest class, but most of them got A's & B's if they turned in their homework, and D's & F's only if they didn't.

 

[Beguiling Orbit]

Ugggh. Sore subject for me. I was always smarter than most kids in my classes, so I got bored. I even got lower grades on papers than I should have because the teacher didn't know as much as I did about certain topics. In 1974, I lived through a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Lima, Peru and watched a 10-story building swaying back and forth for a minute and a 1/2. Later, in 6th grade, I remember turning in a paper about earthquake-proof buildings and got a C-. The teacher wrote "there's no such thing as earthquake proof." Her name was Mrs. Cox. She must have gotten her teaching degree in a Crackerjack box. From that point forward I made it a point to do as little work as possible in school yet still pass. I did that all through high school (I did much better in college). So I knew the difference between an A and an F, but didn't much care.

 

[Katleya]

Ugggh. Sore subject for me. I was always smarter than most kids in my classes, so I got bored. I even got lower grades on papers than I should have because the teacher didn't know as much as I did about certain topics. In 1974, I lived through a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Lima, Peru and watched a 10-story building swaying back and forth for a minute and a 1/2. Later, in 6th grade, I remember turning in a paper about earthquake-proof buildings and got a C-. The teacher wrote "there's no such thing as earthquake proof." Her name was Mrs. Cox. She must have gotten her teaching degree in a Crackerjack box. From that point forward I made it a point to do as little work as possible in school yet still pass. I did that all through high school (I did much better in college). So I knew the difference between an A and an F, but didn't much care.

Oh, I could write a long rant about all the teachers I've had who knew less than I did about their own subject. Especially French teachers, every single one I had hated this little kid with a foreign name who knew the mechanics of French better than they did. Had my share of humiliations in class over things that would have been easily verified just by opening a dictionary; 20 years later, I'm still debating writing letters to some of them, but they won't learn from it anyways.

As for grades, any American letter-based grading I ever received felt unfair, because "good work" gets the same letter as "very good" and "excellent" or "outstanding", so it had me fluctuating between hyper competitive and "eh, why even bother?". But I also remember the terror I felt while waiting for my grade on a paper (either those graded on a 0-100 or 0-20 format), and I guess I could have done without that. I would even get terribly anxious awaiting a grade in the subjects where I was the best student, for fear this time I might be 2nd to best. And those subjects where I wasn't so good? Fear as well, obviously.

 

[wight]

I guess I knew the concept that A = good, and less than A = bad. But I got that from my parents reaction, more than any real understanding of them as a scale. Percentage grades made more sense to me, though they didn't come till later, high school, I think?

What I remember is that I realized really early (like 1st grade) that school was about "doing what is expected" and if you deviated from that expectation, you would be in trouble. Either with grades or parents-teacher conferences or something. I also remember that this rule didn't seem to apply to others, like the my type of deviation was different than the other kids. They seemed to get away with all sorts of "bad behavior"... at least from my perspective. One time I had a teacher make me do a writing assignment 5 times because she didn't like my penmanship? It was utterly ridiculous, but when your 8, there isn't much you can do about it.

 

[Bolletje]

I had no trouble understanding the concept of grades (then again, things here were graded on a scale of 1-10 so it was more logical to me). I did have issues, however, with assignments that wouldn't be graded. Therefore, to me, they didn't feel important, but apparently that was wrong since I got in trouble a few times for not doing these (or half-assing them).

 

[FreeDiver]

I understood the grading system quite well and learned about it in first grade. But I still wonder why there was no "E" grade. All they had was "A,B,C,D and F" but no "E". It's like Roman Numerals, Why did they decide not to assign a letter to 500.

 

[Crossbreed]

Why did they decide not to assign a letter to 500.

D = 500 in Roman numerals

 

[Accelerator]

Grades are kinda' weird for me. In school for grades 1 to 6 I excelled in most of the subjects (the ones I got kinda low on were the subjects in the country's native language, because I learned English first and only picked up the local dialects at around 5, never developed it past that "5-year old" level), and it basically became my status quo; any deviation from first was seen as unacceptable and I threw tantrums when I didn't place as high as I wished (often because of simple mistakes, or forgetting instructions). There were few true competitors (actually I think it was 1), but I kept valedictorian for all 6 years. Come years 7 to today and now I've been able to redefine grades to myself; as a thing that doesn't actually say how smart you actually are (and often not even the effort you put into your work), and just a convenient number for an outdated education system to categorize your ability. It's more a badge. The school also doesn't rank the students to each other, rather above a certain cutoff point your grades are considered worthy of attention (the director's list). Since valedictorian wasn't a thing anymore (and there are now other smart people around me, all with the thing's they're good at, proving that grades are truly meaningless past a certain point), being on the director's list replaced "valedictorian" as a status that must be on at all times. Lets me take a break once in a while (though unfortunately the compulsion to kill myself should I ever lose that particular status is something I most certainly don't want to test. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I would have jumped off the 2nd floor our classroom was on if I found out I wasn't on the list).

 

[Gracey]

I didn't pay a great deal of attention to 'grades' and so wasn't that interested in what it all meant.

Back in the day exams were just a test of memory. How much I could remember over each two hour period on different subjects.(exams)
There was no getting assessed on any coursework completed throughout the year. It was a straight up memory test on two years of learning.

I either understood something or I didn't. If I enjoyed a subject I was enthusiastic. If I didn't enjoy it, I didn't care.

I noticed it meant more to others than it did to me.

 

[Mr Allen]

The only "grades" we had were exam grades, being from the UK.

Unfortunately, I failed almost everything at GCSE level, including Maths, which is affecting my suitability for even entry level Office jobs 26 years later, as they all want kids out of school with 15 GCSEs to their name, I have a chance next year to possibly retake Maths at local College, but I'll have to see what happens work wise, I was offered it at College in 1996 but I was already cramming for an English exam at the same time so I turned it down.

 

[FreeDiver]

D = 500 in Roman numerals

Weird? When I was growing up. They never mention a letter for 500. All they had was I,V,X,L,C and M, but no D. There was even a chart on the wall in math class that told you how to read Roman Numerals and there was no mentioning of D in it.

 

[Judge]

I grew up in a military family. Where most of my actions had potential consequences. So yes, I knew what grades were and their importance almost from the start. Certainly by the second grade. Though my personal opinions over grades started to wane in the eighth grade, where in one class I got an "A", but also a "4". Implying that my conduct needed improvement. Go figure.

While I never lost sight of the importance of grades themselves, I came to realize how arbitrary they could potentially be in terms of how an instructor related or not to me personally. Regardless of whether I mastered the subject matter or not.

In a 10th grade history class I also recall an instructor who had similar sentiments. At the end of the term he literally had us draw either an "A" or "B" from a box. Luckily I drew an "A" entirely by chance. Don't ask, don't tell. No one ever notified the administration, and the grades stuck. I often wonder what his colleagues thought about it if they had known? Though for the early 70s, the man was probably "insulated" given his tenure, union standing and race.

 

[convallaria]

I worried about grades very much in primary school. I understood the value of the grades and exaggerated their significance.
prehistory: when I was 5, I passed the testing at school and the teachers said that I do not need a preparatory class, because my knowledge is already at the level of 1 grade. so I went to school a year earlier than other kids.
I studied in a class with a very hard program for very smart children. and I was really upset and even cried when I was not in the first place in the rating of the class, but on the second or third. I hated kids who had ratings better than me. I envied my classmates. I don't know why in primary school I was really obsessed about grades. at the end of primary school I was transferred to a "normal" class where there was no such rating. there I had very good grades and I stopped worrying. in high school I was angry that I know more, but teachers give higher marks to their favorite students. it was not envy, but a sense of injustice. I was annoyed that at school it is not necessary to study well, but more important to be in good relationships with teachers.

 

[Voltaic]

I did, but I didn't care to much for them. I thought (or knew) I was smart back then, and numbers on a prices of paper didn't define my actual intelligence. They where sporadic ranging from higher grades to lower grades when I was in full breakdown. Now a days, I do believe beyond ego, that how I think, and the interests I took on to devote my time to through my life separates me from most. I don't want to say I smarter directly, because it is both egotistical and not failing to understand just how complicated the concept of intelligence Is, there is no such thing as smarter or dumber, the whole scale is just too grey. At the same time, I am a walking encyclopedia in my interests which have expanded into lots of correlating fields. I lack disaplin though, and find it hard to make the harder steps to progress my knowledge from where it is at, to a higher level because I hit a roadblock.

Wow I got off topic and started bragging a bit.

I did understand grades. I did good at school when I tried, and bad when I didn't. I realised grades are not a measurement of how smart you are, but how much work you put into what you do. For the unfortunate some, that isn't the case, but for the majority of people, they let numbers define how smart they are, when In reality, brains are extremely adaptive. Anyone can become almost anything with enough dedication.