Grading in Our Schools by J. Grant Lamson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 21, 1904

Grading in Our Schools

By J. Grant Lamson

Of recent years in our denominational education, much comment has been made relative to the public school systems of grading, and so earnest has been the opposition to grading, that there has been a decided effort to get some other word even to express the division of the pupils into classes or groups or divisions for school work.

There may be faults in grading, but before we throw aside as of no account whatever the experience of years of actual work in the schoolroom, let us carefully consider: first, What is grading? second, For what purpose? third, The best methods of grading; fourth, Promotions.

1. Grading may be said to be that system of dividing the pupils of the school into classes so that those students who compose any one grade will be studying the same lesson at the same time.

2. The object of grading is to accomplish the greatest good to the greatest number with the least expenditure of time and energy.

Let us now study a few very patent facts. The students who come to our schools, or any school, are not all of the same brain power, have not all traveled the road to the same mile-post, are not all sufficiently well versed in one subject to be prepared to take up the next. We will suppose a school of twenty-five children. Probably no two are just alike in any particular. For illustration, let us take the subject of arithmetic. Number 1 understands and can do reasonably well a problem in addition; Number 2 not only can do that, but can work a problem, and understand it, in subtraction; Number 3, in multiplication; Number 4, in division; and so on with the entire twenty-five students, until the twenty-fifth will be able to solve the problems which relate to mensuration and commercial transactions. Suppose the students who are old enough to take up the study of technical grammar and those who are studying practical language are equally diverse in attainments, then consider that they probably are also equally separate in their ability in the subjects of reading, geography, etc.—what one teacher could teach such a school on the basis of no grades? Grades, then, are formed that the teacher may accomplish more work by asking a few of the students to delay their journey along the path of knowledge until some of those who are behind them can catch up with them and then walk together. This is not only a public school idea, but a Christian idea, and is an exhibition of Christianity in its voluntary, cheerful performance by the pupil. We will then ask those students who might be capable of working the problems in subtraction, multiplication, and division to review and become more proficient in addition, while the boy or girl who is learning how to add accomplishes his purpose; and then together the four will enter the subject of subtraction, two for the first time, and so on. In this way the twenty-five students might be grouped into three or four divisions; the teacher is able to accomplish more; the students are given more time individually than if each individual pupil were permitted to go on right where he left off. I believe the statements so far are clear to every one.

3. So anxious have been some of our church-school workers to avoid anything like the word “grade,” that in many of our schools they have adopted the word “group.” With an avowed purpose of decreasing the work of the teacher, the groups that have been formed have covered more territory than the former grades. In some schools, what were formerly the first, second, and even third grades, were placed in the first group. In many schools two grades or three grades have been formed into groups, the idea being that with fewer groups the teacher would have fewer classes. This means one of two things: that while the students are grouped three grades in one, the teacher still hears each pupil individually, and thus has as many classes as though there were no groups; or else the third-grade pupil, formerly so-called, must wait for the first-grade pupil, or in some way the pupils must be brought together for one period of instruction. If the first grade (supposing there are to be three grades in this group) is required to get the lesson which properly fits the second grade, it is a manifest injustice and a straining of the power of the first-grade child. If the third-grade pupil is required to get the lesson of the second-grade pupil in order that the three grades of this group may perform the same work, it is a manifest injustice to the third-grade pupil; for it unduly retards the advancement of the child.

Going back to the ideal method, it would be that each individual forms a grade for himself. This is possibly best in schools of from one to four or five pupils, but when the number exceeds this, divisions must be made, or the teacher’s time will be so cut up into small fractions that good work will not be accomplished for any pupil without slighting others.

If, then, we can not have the ideal method, what next?—Let us divide our pupils into such classes, divisions, or groups, whatever the name, that there will be the least tarrying on the part of any pupil for laggards or those who, because of lack of years or opportunity, have not been able to accomplish as much as others. With this idea in view, it is manifestly true that the nearer together grades are as to the time it takes to complete the work of a certain subject or a certain part of a certain subject, the better the grading. The further we are removed from this, the worse for the student.

In large cities where large numbers of pupils are enrolled, where many teachers can be employed because of the number of students, and where large numbers of students may be found of approximately the same ability, it is easy to accomplish the laid-out work of a grade, in a school semester of five months. In smaller cities and villages it is found impracticable to do this, and teachers are asked to take two groups of students approximately a year apart in their work. Of course, this means that the pupil who is not able to do work with the sixth grade, for instance, will necessarily be required to work with the fifth grade until that fifth grade comes up to a place where the sixth-grade pupil could have worked. This, in the mind of the writer, is a sufficient distance between classes as to the length of time it takes to accomplish a well-selected amount of work. If we go beyond this and form groups covering two or three years of school work, it is a manifest injustice to the child, parent, and teacher.

Now as to the word “grade.” Why should any one question the word? I believe Seventh-day Adventists have manifested an undue fear that they will use some word or expression which some one else is using. We are so anxious to be a distinct and peculiar people that we are getting to make ourselves such by a change of nomenclature, in our school work, in our church work, and in many other places. The Jews tried to make themselves a peculiar people by wearing peculiar clothes. Let us not endeavor to make ourselves peculiar by getting up a new system of names.

J. GRANT LAMSON. (To be concluded)