This week鈥檚 column was (again) to be about the inadequacy of letter grades as measures of successful learning or, for that matter, predictions about anything relating to a child鈥檚 progress in school or in later life.
Oh no, you say 鈥� not another polemic about the least reliable gauge of learning, which is still substantially relied upon by parents as an indicator of their child鈥檚 颅educational progress and prospects.
It is an irony and a problem that even though a letter grade on a report card 颅provides no educationally 颅useful 颅information, it is impossible to deny that letter grades are still being used as a 颅significant marker of a child鈥檚 future 颅prospects 鈥� the ability to get into college, qualify for scholarships and so on.
Then, just as I was preparing to 颅escalate into yet another full-on 750-word rant about the many shortcomings of measuring or predicting anything worth knowing with a single letter grade (a doctor鈥檚 report on the state of one鈥檚 physical or mental health, for example), a new study appeared, a 颅comprehensive 20-year examination of 800聽children from kindergarten through their mid-20s published in the American Journal of Public Health.
This longitudinal study establishes a link not between faux measurements of 颅academic and cognitive progress, but between the development of a child鈥檚 social and emotional skills in kindergarten and 颅success in early adulthood.
Researchers found, among other things, that children who were helpful and learned to share in kindergarten were more likely to have graduated from college and have a full-time job at age 25.
Further, children who had problems resolving conflicts, sharing, co-operating and listening as kindergartners were less likely to have finished high school and 颅college, and more likely to have substance-abuse problems and run-ins with the law.
The findings are 鈥渉uge鈥� when it comes to thinking about how social and emotional health, even more than cognitive progress, affects a person鈥檚 overall health and 颅wellbeing in later life.
As Kristin Schubert, program director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funded the research, commented: 鈥淚t鈥檚 like a paradigm shift around what it means to be mentally well at an early age and how that dictates how life goes for you later on.鈥�
To conduct the study, researchers from Penn State University and Duke University looked at data from 1991 teacher evaluations of kindergartners鈥� social competency skills.
For every one-point increase in a child鈥檚 social-competency score in kindergarten, the child was, 20 or so years later, twice as likely to obtain a college degree, and 46% more likely to have a full-time job by age 25.
The implications of the study鈥檚 findings are far-reaching, said Schubert. 鈥淔irst, there鈥檚 a message to educators that 颅finding ways to develop social and emotional 颅learning can be just as important as 颅cognitive skills.鈥�
Damon Jones of Penn State University, the lead researcher for the study, said researchers were 鈥渟urprised but not completely surprised鈥� by the findings.
Jones said he and his fellow researchers knew the importance of social and emotional competency in a child鈥檚 development, but didn鈥檛 quite expect to find as strong a 颅correlation between those skills and a child鈥檚 long-term well-being, even with other variables such as a family鈥檚 socioeconomic status and the child鈥檚 academic ability factored out.
The researchers wrote that success in school involves social-emotional as well as cognitive skills, because social interactions, attention and self-control affect readiness for learning.
But can those social and emotional skills be taught and learned? Yes, says 91原创 educator, social entrepreneur, child advocate and parenting expert Mary Gordon.
Gordon is the founder and president of both Roots of Empathy and Seeds of Empathy, non-profit evidence-based programs dedicated to promoting emotional literacy and empathy among children.
The program, endorsed by the B.C. 颅Ministry of Education, consists of 27 weekly classes with a Roots of Empathy 颅instructor who focuses on the development of 颅鈥渙ther-centred鈥� social skills throughout the school year. It鈥檚 now found in 81% of B.C.鈥檚 school districts, across all five health regions.
All well and good, you say, but doesn鈥檛 getting 鈥渂ack to the basics鈥� of K-12 education involve using traditional letter grades as place markers in learning? Without that, how can we represent a student鈥檚 progress?
Well, stay tuned, because next week鈥檚 column will outline six non-letter-grade assessment methodologies that are gaining increasing acceptance as more accurate in assessing progress in both learning and 颅personal growth in students.
Geoff Johnson is a former superintendent of schools.
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