或许有些不好的成绩其实并没有那么糟糕（双语）

Maybe some bad grades aren’t so bad after all

By Vanessa Mobley (NYT)

我女儿学校的校长每个学期都会向获得全 A 的学生发送一封私人信件。 去年有一段时间，我女儿没有收到这封信——她数学得了 A-。 但除了我之外，我家里没有谁在乎（没有收到）那封信。

也许这并不奇怪：如果曾经获得 A 感觉像是一种成就，那么现在许多学生认为这是理所当然的。 正如教师兼作家蒂姆·多纳休 (Tim Donahue) 在他的客座文章（guest essay；“如果每个人都获得 A，那么没有人获得 A” ）中指出的那样，成绩膨胀已达到“2016 年，47% 的高中生以 A 的成绩范围毕业”的程度。

我们的孩子是否会变得更聪明，或者他们的老师是否会因为成绩的苦苦钻研和努力奋斗的父母令人讨厌的环境焦虑而疲惫不堪？

教高中英语的多纳休分享的理论可能会让你感到惊讶。 最引起我共鸣的是这样一种想法：分数膨胀是衡量我们将记录的分数误认为所获得的知识的程度的指标。

即使在成长心态和韧性等概念成为我们词汇的一部分的时代，对失败的基本恐惧也是我们生活和抚养孩子的一部分。 对失败的恐惧，或者多纳休令人难忘地描述的将成绩误认为“纯粹的商品”，可能会抑制学生寻找更难掌握的材料的愿望，这些材料可能会带来分数较低的风险。

规避风险带来的习惯对我们孩子的未来来说可能不是好消息。 作为一名拥有 30 年经验的教师和一名家长，多纳休知道学习是一个终生的过程，即使评分并非如此。

Each trimester the head of my daughter’s school sends a personal letter to students who earn straight A’s. There was a time last year my daughter didn’t receive the letter — she had an A- in math. But no one in my house missed that letter except me.  

Maybe that isn’t so weird: If getting an A once felt like an accomplishment, many students now take it for granted. As the teacher and writer Tim Donahue points out in his guest essay “If Everyone Gets an A, No One Gets an A,” grade inflation has reached the point where “in 2016, 47 percent of high school students graduated with grades in the A range.”

Could our kids be getting smarter, or are their teachers getting worn down by grade grubbing and the obnoxious ambient anxiety of striving parents?

The theories that Donahue, who teaches high school English, shares might surprise you. The one that most resonated with me is the idea that grade inflation is a measure of the extent to which we’ve mistaken grades logged for knowledge acquired.

Even in a time when concepts like growth mind-set and resilience are parts of our vocabulary, a basic fear of failure is also part of how we live and raise our children. And that fear of failure, or what Donahue memorably describes as mistaking grades for “sheer commodities,” could dampen students’ desire to seek out harder-to-master material that carries the risk of lower marks.  

The habits that risk avoidance brings may not be good news for our kids’ futures. As a teacher of 30 years and a parent himself, Donahue knows that learning is a lifelong process, even if being graded is not.