Though the weather is still gloriously autumnal, we’re already halfway through the first quarter of the school year. That means it is a time of assessment, when teachers take a cold and flinty look at their pupils — or a warm and indulgent look, depending — and send report cards winging through the mail and the Internet. Entirely correctly, children are held accountable — to their parents, and to teachers — for an amazing number of attributes. They are judged not merely for their innate abilities or the effort they expend, but also for orderliness, cooperation with others, efficiency, amiability, neatness and ability to get their work done on time.
So they should, you say, and I agree. But sometimes when I read through my own children’s reports, I cannot suppress the slightly uneasy feeling that if the tables were turned, I might not do nearly as well as they do on some of the intangibles.
In fact, I suspect many adults would not be at all flattered by what they read if children were the ones keeping the dossiers. We hold first-graders to very high standards, but I am not sure that we ourselves, we smug and accomplished grown-ups, would score at all impressively. For instance:
Displays courtesy. That jerk who cut you off in morning traffic? Unsatisfactory! But for stopping, rolling down the window and screaming at him, you get an F. We must all be courteous to others, take turns and share.
Accepts responsibility. The Occupy-ish protesters complaining about having to pay back their student loans deserve a trip to the principal’s office. If you borrow someone else’s crayons, you have to give them back — even if you don’t want to, and even if it means you don’t have any crayons left. Any first-grader can tell you that.
Uses time wisely. All you adults who scroll obliviously for hours on your smart phone screen, playing Angry Birds or Words with Friends while real life is taking place all around you, I suspect that you Need Improvement.
Reads with fluency and comprehension. We grown-ups are not doing well on this. A huge study by the National Endowment for the Arts four years ago found that “reading proficiency rates are stagnant or declining in adults of both genders and at all education levels” and that “average reading scores have declined in adults of virtually all education levels.” It’s an Area of Concern and Needs Improvement.
Expresses ideas well orally. So, OK, we’re not exactly in a totally, you know, like, Periclean era of oration, or whatever. I’m saying, I mean, even really, like, educated people who have, like these huge incredible loans to pay off (which is by the way totally unfair, because why should they have to pay back some college or whatever, or, like a bank, when they get bailouts?) can’t even string a few words together without, like, using verbal crutches, you know? Unsatisfactory.
It is a good thing, really, that no one writes report cards about us, once we grow up. Held to the standards that apply to 6- and 7-year-olds, a lot us would probably fail.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
