didaink

Are letter grades the reason teens cheat?

“So why did you cheat, Lila?” I asked. Lila is an A student and a soon-to-be senior at Palo Alto High School.

“To get a good grade,” she confessed.

“How would your parents react if you told them?” (Both parents are graduates of a prestigious Ivy League university and both are high-earning professionals in Silicon Valley.)

“They’d be shocked.”

“Did you cheat in several classes or just one?”

“A few,” she admitted, her warm brown eyes low and lost.

“And do you remember anything that you learned in those classes?”

“No, not really… except maybe how to cheat.”

What are the Lila’s of Silicon Valley telling us about their world and the letter-grading system? What has the need to get an “A” done to them? Is it, in fact, the prime reason they cheat? Are college admission offices really seeing then the truth on high school transcripts and SAT scores or are they often evaluating a carefully concocted lie? If so, what are parents, schools and higher education doing to change the status quo?

Questions like these have been tapping me on the shoulder ever since I read Denise Clark Pope’s book, “Doing School.” Her book resonated with me, especially after I overheard another teen last year (also an A student and a top athlete) casually talking about how he’d cheated his way through various classes in high school that he thought were a waste of his time. He and one of his college grad friends were rapping about how dumb you’d have to be not to cheat if a class was boring or you didn’t like the teacher.

So, last month when Stanford Law School announced that they are doing away with the traditional A-F grading system (following the lead of other elite law schools like Yale and UC Berkeley), I decided to take a closer look at the letter grading system at the high school level in our community and even at the university level.

Innovative undergraduate programs at schools like MIT, Reed College in Oregon, Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington, and New College of Florida (NCF), as well as UC Santa Cruz, have also incorporated broader grading systems which include individualized performance evaluations, with the focus off grades and back on a more personalized approach to each student’s learning experience.

Will Stanford Law’s decision influence Stanford’s undergrad program to take the focus off grades? Are these ‘out-of-the-box’ approaches working? Are students really challenged and motivated? Could they actually learn more and enjoy college more without receiving or knowing what letter grade they were given by their teacher?

Now that my own daughter is about to start Kindergarten, dangling her innocent feet into the icy cold waters of the American public education system, I have finally decided to begin my quest to unearth the answers to some of these questions. I have begun by interviewing teens at Palo Alto High and Los Altos High, and even Stanford freshman.

I’d like to hear from them first. What do they think about what Stanford Law has recently done to improve learning and take the focus off letter grades? What changes would they make at their own schools to improve how they’re graded and evaluated? What would they tell their parents if they could about the pressure they’re under to academically achieve? What if they came clean about cheating, what would actually happen to them? Has cheating, in fact, reached epidemic proportions because of the need for The Almighty A?

I recently spoke with author, Denise Clark Pope PhD, a leading researcher and lecturer on the subject of pressure to compete and achieve in high school. Her book “Doing School,” How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, openly talks about how we have created a culture and an education system where kids are doing whatever it takes to get the grade and win the attention and the recognition of their parents and teachers, but at the cost of their own well-being and self-respect.

Dr. Pope is also a lecturer at Stanford University School of Education, where she founded and directs the SOS: Stressed-Out Students project, a national research and intervention project for K-12 schools. Because her work has inspired me to explore the topic more closely, I wanted to ask Dr. Pope’s reaction to Stanford Law’s move to take the emphasis off grades and place it back on learning.

“Do you think that the law school’s decision will truly impact or change students’ overall learning experience?”

“Students who are grade-oriented will most likely continue to try for the Honors or “H” status because that’s their mindset, but many students just want to focus on the work instead of the grade,” she replied.

“Will Stanford University follow suit and change their grading system?”

“I know that a few folks have suggested doing what MIT has done – not grading first year students or at least not grading the first quarter of work. The idea being that it is such a big transition from high school, not wanting to overload incoming freshman with grading anxiety but rather saying, Here, let’s get your feet wet first.”

In the final pages of “Doing School,” Dr. Pope speaks about the need to listen to high school students before we can even begin to change or impact their education successfully. If we don’t listen to teens and their ideas about how to improve their learning experience, how will we begin to understand how to reach each student emotionally? And without reaching students emotionally, truly understanding what they care about, there is little hope for reigniting their passion for learning and discovery.

There’s no telling how long cheating has been going on in the classroom. In 2005, a Duke University study revealed that 75% of all high school students cheat in the United States and if you include copying homework, it climbs to 90%. Last year, in Reagan McMahon’s article “Everybody Does It,” (SF Gate, September 9, 2007), Dr. Pope states that 80% of honors and advanced placement students cheat on a regular basis because they have more to lose if they don’t cheat.

So, how does Silicon Valley rate? Have we here in the privileged backyard of Stanford University done a better or a worse job at over-loading and stressing out our youth? What would students really say about cheating to get the grade when they aren’t being threatened or judged by an authoritative adult in their lives? Do they feel it violates their integrity or self-respect? A little? A lot? Can they articulate that yet or does that come years later, after they’ve received their college diplomas by hook or by crook. I hope to share my findings in the coming months.

Let’s step back a bit, though, to 1983. Twenty-five years. (Okay, that’s quite a few steps back, which would make me now… around ... yeah, there’s the reason I never truly embraced math.)

It was a pivotal time, not just in my life and my education, but also for technology and the world we know today in Silicon Valley. 1983 was the year I would graduate high school, the year before my father would die, the year before Steve Jobs would present to the world the first desktop computer – an amazing 9” screened, black and white Apple Macintosh. I wouldn’t know it yet, but I would do the same thing at the University of San Francisco that Steve Jobs did after his first semester at Reed College. I would leave college and begin to love learning all over again. Jobs would eventually become one of my heroes, a self-directed innovator who saw a vision of the future because of a profound love and passion for discovery in the present.

Twenty-five years ago when I was a senior in high school, it would have been me, instead of Lila, giving the same answers to those questions. It’s no big secret – cheating in school and lying to your parents strolled hand in hand in my generation, too. But it seemed, how should I say… much more sophomoric, especially when Ferris Bueller and Tom Cruise in Risky Business made lying to your parents and teachers look so fun and glamorous, particularly in your skivvies.

Like Lila, though, I also had very academically successful parents. The expectation in households like Lila’s and mine were set by our parent’s achievements - and with high achievements comes high expectations and insurmountable pressure to compete.

However, in the Eighties, it was generally the kids who never did well (mostly “the jocks” in my high school) that were cheating off the kids who studied hard and always did well (“the geeks,” as it were). Today, it is the smart kids who are leading the way, caught up in a broader spectrum of pressure from home to do well at everything – academics, sports, social-clubs, music, band… and the list/beat goes on.

During the Eighties, teens fell into clearer categories than they do today, and it was the students mostly, not their parents, pushing for more extra-curricular activities. Parents today know that leading universities want youth who are unique, students who stand out both academically and socially, and that’s why they’re pushing their children harder. Is this healthy? Is it helping their kids? Maybe. Maybe not. What would parents do differently if they knew how much their kids cheated to keep up? What would parents say if they knew that cheating is now considered among their A-student children to be a very helpful, time-management tool?

Eleven out of the twelve teens I’ve interviewed so far admitted to cheating or helping others cheat. Each said that the number one reason they do it is because of pressure from their parents to get a good letter grade. The second reason, they said, is because they don’t have enough time to study and cheating makes their life a lot easier and manageable. The third reason is pressure from friends who may drop them socially if they don’t let them copy their homework or cheat off their test.

Do they consider cheating to be wrong or a big deal? Not really or at least not until they get caught. But that almost never happens. Why is that? A seventeen year old from Los Altos High put it this way, “Because the people who do it are really smart and good at it.”

I was particularly bad at cheating in high school, which gives you a fairly good idea of my academic skill-set, although, I did try… many times. I was no different than any of the teens I’ve interviewed. I just don’t remember cheating being ‘no big deal’ or ever casual. What I remember was almost throwing up during my SAT exams, doubled-over in pain, thinking that my whole life and future teetered on the outcome of those English and math scores. The fear and pressure that consumed me as I walked into that auditorium flapping with ‘Flock of Seagull’ haircuts came from parental pressure to succeed academically, but it also came from a strong desire to impress my parents and family to gain their respect and attention. Sad, ironic and true.

Coming from a strong academic family, letter grades and SAT scores were everything (both my parents were educators, however neither of their parents went much past the 4th grade in school). Because my parents couldn’t afford private university for their eight children on a teacher’s salary, academic scholarships were expected. So, the thought that I might just be an average student with a creative, artistic streak was not an idea that was easily entertained or accepted. “Average” and “creative” were code words for “failure” – not just for me but also for my parents. And talking about happiness without academic success was just not in my parent’s vocabulary or probably in any book or thesaurus they may have consulted on the subject. Academic achievement meant better opportunities in their generation. It meant better pay, better jobs, better houses, better appliances, better cars, better families and better children… and, of course, it still does. However, being better doesn’t actually mean happier – not then and certainly not today.

Had I just been able to make out the answers on Lawson’s test form (Lawson was my calculus-loving, former 3rd grade boyfriend, who had a functioning car and offered to drive me to take the SATs) I would have whole-heartedly cheated that day. Without a doubt, I would have cheated and lied my way into a bright and shiny new college education. Fortunately for me, though, little Lawson turned out to be a 6’5 giant at seventeen, and his exceptionally long basketball arms blocked all the answers I so desperately wanted to call my own.

Thanks to Lawson and his gifted arms, I didn’t get into Stanford like one of my older sisters who was awarded a full academic scholarship. No, my path to learning and education would be different – maybe even more challenging and gratifying than studying at an elite university.

(If you’d like to read more about Dida Gazoli’s research findings regarding the letter grading system in Silicon Valley and what teens and their parents are saying about it, email her at contactdida@didaink.com)

What Death Told Me

(Excerpt from original essay)	

	I have always tried to dodge the word.  

Even as a child, I would try to blur it out 

if I stumbled upon it in a book or heard it 

trip and fall from someone’s mouth. It wasn’t 

a word meant for me. It was a word for those 

other people -- the whispering PTA ladies 

at the bus stop, Walter Cronkite hiding behind 

those thick black glasses and that odd empty 

desk, the priest who slowly climbed the steps 

of the house next door after our neighbor hung 

herself in her kitchen. So, how would I ever 

be able to explain death to my own children?  

        That question had haunted me ever 

since I gave birth to my four year old 

daughter after thirty-three hours of 

life-affirming labor. Then, when my son 

was born after a breezy, eight hour labor, 

it was signed, sealed... delivered. I would 

never speak the word outloud. 

Ruby Rey's Kissy Bank

(Excerpt from current children's book)

Ruby Rey noticed everything - from the clouds outside her kitchen window, floating silently and angelically over the neighbor's jagged red chimney, to the delicate marshmallows bobbing up and down in her cup of warm cocoa.

"... like little white comfy rafts on a chocolaty lake," she thought, watching them melt into one another.  They now formed a sugary rink at the top of her penguin teacup. 

She suddenly pictured her pet caterpillar, James, with all of his delicate green feet, tucked neatly into perfect rows of tiny white skates.  In her cup and in her mind, James was gliding effortlessly across his very own, custom-built, penguin ice rink.

"I think James should take up ice skating.  Don't you, Pigalou?" she asked.  Pigalou was seated quietly beside her at the kitchen table, across from James.

Pigalou is Ruby Rey's best-est friend, like a brother and a sister, a dog and a cat, all swirled together -- even though Pigalou was actually once a very round, cushy circus pig.  That was a long time ago, though... before all the repairs. 

Last year Pigalou was practicing his high-wire routine and accidentally landed his somersault right into the washing machine.  That's when Mama called Plumber Lou.  He used his super-duper, plumber powers to rescue Pigalou from the Spin-Cycle.

A load of success: confessions from a middle-aged mom

Much like my Catholic mother who had eight children by the time she was forty, I started my day today as I do most every day – I prayed. Unlike my mother however, I am 6 and ½ children short, haven't been to church in over five years and my prayers these days are mostly about bacon. Please, God, please don’t let me run out.  I also pray that the clock will say 7:00am and not 6:00am by the time I hear Elmo Potato Head’s, high-pitched demands,

“Elmo needs a nose. Elmo needs a mouth!”

Please… please don’t let her find it in the toy box so fast. And God? Is it a sin to accidentally throw out your child’s favorite toy?

Please don’t misunderstand, I don’t mean to trivialize the power of prayer or talking with God on a regular basis. On the contrary, I am a firm believer in it. I would certainly be lost without it. The reality, though, is that when you’re forty-one, raising a two and a half year-old full time and pregnant with your second child, your ideals change dramatically.

Take success for instance. Success this morning would mean a ten minute, HOT, shower instead of a warm, two-minute rinse… thanks to my husband, who was kind enough to gift me his shower. Success would also entail finding one last pair of clean underwear in my dresser drawer. The chance of that happening, however, is not so good given that I can hear the Mt. Everest pile of laundry cackling at me from across the hall.

My morning would radiantly glow with success if the dog completes both ‘little potty and big potty’ outside instead of inside, as Elmo's pal, Mr. Noodle, shows my daughter how not to put on her clothes, while I fry up my contraband of bacon.

Yep, you heard me, Elmo:  B A C O N.  In case you and Big Bird haven’t heard, it’s in the Revised Webster’s New World Dictionary under: Success after Forty.

“Mama! Juice ME !!” she shouts from the den.

I better hustle in there before Barney starts up.

“Annabella-Marie... you mean, Juice, please, Mama.  Here you go… Okay! So! Sesame Street is almost over and now it’s time for us to eat breakfast at the table. Yee-ay!”

My reasonably well-thought out and quite cheerful explanation is then greeted with a warm and familiar, and operatically lilting,

"NO!  Elmo LOVES me! BYE, BYE,” followed by the door-slam crescendo and mezzo-soprano cadenza, “BEE-YEE-EYE !"

It’s right about now that I secretly wish for Elmo’s World to crumble and disintegrate into dust and for all of Sesame Street to hear what I hear -- glass shattering screams coming from our den.  Hopefully, Hooper’s Store has lost all of its fine china by now, too. Let this be a lesson to the furry red guru who, in my humble opinion, uses the L-word a little too often.

“But… Mama LOVES you MORE, my little Tickle-Marie, so let’s eat breakfast. Mama’s got bacon…” I sing back to her through the door, in my, I’ll be your best friend voice.

And then the tide starts to turn my way again and the doorknob gently begins to move counter-clockwise. Somehow, I never pictured myself bribing my little bundle of joy with greasy, center-cut bacon when I was fantasizing about motherhood in my twenties and thirties.

Oddly enough, success after forty is no longer measured by the size of my bank account or my wardrobe or by how good my voice sounds or even how good my hair looks. It doesn’t seem to matter if I’ve got the right moisturizer on or if I’m wearing designer shoes or flip flops, or that I never sang on Broadway by the time I turned twenty-five.

As I remember it now, my goal of starring in a hit-musical was actually replaced by my goal of having a roof over my head and having something other than pasta “al-burro” to eat. I never did spend any rainy summer nights playing Ronnie Scott’s in London in my thirties, did I?  But I did spend many foggy nights in San Francisco singing for close to free in no-name cafés where my scat solo was usually up-staged by the frother on the espresso machine. 

In the old version of success, my forties were going to be my glory years, touring Europe, performing for sold-out amphitheaters and reveling in the applause of my adoring French fans who just could not get enough of me and my avant garde, five-minute solos. Success before motherhood, Freud might have even agreed, was almost like a gigantic, unreachable carrot, and I, a short, starving bunny with an enormous appetite for ego soufflé.

Luckily, today’s version of success doesn’t seem to have much to do with me at all.  As a beginner-mom facing her glory-year forties, success now feels exactly like two-hour naps under soft fuzzy blankets. It tastes like a fresh cup of coffee from a clean cup. It smells like an oven filled with warm peanut butter cookies and oozing, glazed cinnamon rolls. And it sounds like two minute tantrums instead of twenty minute meltdowns.

On most days, it smiles at me from ear to ear like a blue-eyed angel with sticky fingers and purple popsicle lips. It might even occasionally peek through a streak-free window and land on a dust-free dresser, stacked high with clean underwear. And you can almost bet on it to cry out at midnight while you’re trying to eek out time to write about success. But, by midnight and a half, it calms back down in your arms, butterfly lashes fluttering then landing over closing, peaceful eyes.

One of my "decade younger" friends surprised me recently by telling me that I am one of the few moms she knows that actually enjoys being at home all day. I have to admit, I never would have described myself this way. That sounds more like my own mother during the Golden Fifties. That notion disturbed me, in fact, but was it true? Have I then abandoned feminism and all the things I worked so hard to prove in my twenties and thirties? Was I more like my mother than I realized? I do like to wear red lipstick in the mornings just in case the UPS guy stops by... and I am always talking to God and/or Saint Anthony, the Patront Saint of Lost Socks.  But wait, I've never even owned an apron, except for the one I botched in Seventh Grade Home Ecc. Class. 

Now, I am anxious to find out the truth.  Have I become a Betty Crocker Wanna-be?  Do I secretly want to cook for and feed an army of children like my mother did?  Am I actually happier now, at mid-life, being a Stay-at-Home Mom? Is it more fulfilling than I had ever expected it to be?  Or am I now part of an exciting new breed of mother – rediscovering and redefining success after forty?  God?  Are you still listening? 

Oh, please let there be more bacon in the freezer.  And God?  Have you seen Saint Anthony today?  Maybe he knows where I put that avocado-green, zigzag stitched apron from Seventh Grade.  I'd search the garage, but I've got this snickering summit of Himalayan laundry to fold.

The backyard of your tomorrow

A new year…

A beginning and an ending found

Reminding the rest of us to look up and around

I'll take more notice now at the amber leaves

Twirling their way down

To the fresh green grass

Their edges

Damp

But refreshed

By the haloed January air and

The thought of a blonder daffodil Spring

When the rain comes again

And the tulips lift their heads

To drink and smile a soft yellow hello

I'll be thinking of you

As you decide which room to nap in

Which window to gaze out of

Which redwood to adopt

In your forest

Oasis

Lit by a golden

Sugar bear

Fire

Safe in

The backyard

Of your tomorrow

Unto Morning He Flew

Unto morning he flew

A defiant burly fox sparrow

Our perilous hero

Swooping out into blue

Cerulean first light, our sapphire awakened the sky

And in between the ambers and green

The chime of nature

Locked sides, then released him

Sailing mercifully

Beyond Orion’s forgiving white sword

Basking there

In his own pink nebula dawn

I hear his unmistakable call

Chirring with hope and wisdom and song

His voice, a fiery echo of life

Everlasting

His eyes, the aqua blue swirl

Of love flowing strong

© didaink

For Paul

January 31, 2005

Food for Thought: Lunch with The Petersons

(An excerpt from the original essay.)

You spoiled him rotten, didn’t you? Probably gave him all the things you never had, showering him with attention and praise, the way your parents never did.  Then you patted yourself on the back for a job well done, right?  Meanwhile, he was busy becoming a household name – only, not for achieving greatness or acts of kindness, but for doing the unspeakable.  Why didn’t you do something?!  Couldn’t you see the monster he had become? Maybe if you’d been a better mother, a better father… 

Those were my thoughts as I stood next to Scott Peterson’s parents, judging them ruthlessly as we stood in line about to order lunch, my baby’s stroller blocking their path.

It was a last minute decision to visit Filoli Gardens on that unusually warm day in July.  Like most days as a new mom, I was nervous about doing the right thing for my baby.  Was it too hot to take her out today?  Did I choose the right sun block?  Should I bring the stroller or the Baby Bjorn?  Which would be cooler? Maybe I should bring the tent for added protection. Was there SPF 60 available?  If I’d only gone to the right drugstore… and countless other questions and fears, and it wasn’t even 10:00am yet.