Bias and Hidden Assumptions in Education - and Life

I participate occasionally in discussions on LinkedIn, Medium, Quora, and Reddit, usually when I have an amygdala spike after reading someone's question or response. It helps me calm down. This conversation happened this morning.

What Montessori says about grading, intrinsic motivation, and the hidden assumptions of conventional education: Maria Montessori was one of the first educators to argue that grades are not only unnecessary but actively harmful to genuine learning. She observed that when children are graded, their motivation shifts from the intrinsic satisfaction of understanding to the external goal of avoiding punishment. She called this the substitution of fear for curiosity, and argued that it produces children who are skilled at performing for adults but poorly equipped to learn independently. Research on grading and intrinsic motivation (Deci, Koestner, and Ryan, 1999, Psychological Bulletin) conducted a meta-analysis of 128 studies and found that external rewards and punishments, including grades, consistently undermined intrinsic motivation, particularly for tasks requiring creativity, deep thinking, and genuine understanding. A 2021 study in Educational Psychology Review confirmed that students in ungraded or mastery-based learning environments showed significantly stronger long-term retention, greater intellectual risk-taking, and higher self-reported love of learning than peers in conventionally graded classrooms.

The Conversation

Question, posted by another user

Is it not absurd that a teacher can punish a student for the teacher's own failure, with bad grades?

Larry Shiller

I love this question because it challenges widely held assumptions and beliefs about what education is and should be. The following questions expose some of these:

Why are students graded at all? How does that help them become better learners?
Why do we use the word "teacher"? Does that not put the focus on someone other than the child?
An independent child may not want to learn what administrators, teachers, or the government want them to, and would prefer to learn something else. How well does the current approach promote the goal of having children learn how to learn and become independent?
A bad grade implies not understanding something, or not being able to communicate that understanding. Is that always the student's fault? Or is it the failure of the system to generate an environment conducive to learning at each student's own pace?
Mistakes result in bad grades and are thus punished. How then shall we encourage children to take appropriate risks, and to celebrate and learn from mistakes instead of being punished for them?

Our educational system is broken and needs new thinking. This question gets us closer to at least asking better questions.

Reply from another user

Does personal responsibility enter into your equation?

Larry Shiller

On whose part? I assume you mean the student's. As children grow, one of the important things they learn is the benefits that come from taking personal responsibility, and another is how to achieve it.

A hidden assumption behind your question is that everyone has, or should have, the same definition of personal responsibility. That is not the case. For example, some children value scoring well on tests, while others do not. Receiving a bad grade does not necessarily mean the child is failing to take responsibility.

Another hidden assumption is that, even if everyone shared the same definition, personal responsibility is either present or absent (a fixed mindset view), or that it can only be learned through grading. There are other possibilities.

My own definition of personal responsibility is to value truth over ego and to actively search for and eliminate my biases. I think the world would be a better place if more people defined it that way but I would not impose my definition on anyone but myself.