Report Cards, Politics, and Citizen Research

Last week I attended the social hour at a two-day conference in Hertzlia for academics, journalists, and bloggers. In keeping with my retired status and my general preference for conversation over rhetoric, I managed to avoid the panels and presentations, just showed up for the sushi, hummus, and chitchat, sponsored by Pajamas Media (photos here).

Afterwards I was curious enough to read conference reviews from some of the Israeli bloggers who were there, and many interesting comments (79 so far, and still counting) on Liza's post. As a result, now that my computer has been repaired, I have to read more blogs. All of which has got me thinking. (It happens.) Both the conference and blogs are great examples of free speech. Those of us raised in Western countries take free speech for granted and use it to inform and to rally support for the issues we care about, without fear of bodily harm.

My own public education included the mantra, "No freedom without responsibility," but it's clear that in some places people confuse freedom with license, and they confuse democracy with elections. No, I don't mean the conference erupted into physical violence. But it got me wondering how people are educated to be responsible citizens in a democracy? Back in the 1940's there was a subject in elementary school called History and Civics. I know because I have my report card from 4th grade. Later the subject was renamed Social Studies. I wonder why? And how do report cards get created anyhow? I don't mean the grades on them, but the subjects that are deemed important enough to be graded and reported?

From what I understand of the No Child Left Behind program in the USA, it is intended to promote literacy and basic competence in math and science from the earliest grades, so that even the most underprivileged American children will at least get the tools of economic survival. An admirable goal, regardless of whether this particular initiative will accomplish it. Being a citizen of two countries, I often wonder about children's education not only for literacy and numeracy (?), but also for citizenship, both in and beyond the USA. What are they being taught? I realize that in some countries, going to school at all is a privilege and a hardship for families, and those children are in school to get as much reading, writing, and arithmetic as they can absorb as quickly as possible. However, in those situations, the children are also learning something about society and politics. Sometimes their parents even have to bribe the teachers to allow them into the classroom, and I suspect the kids know it.

My older granddaughter's public school (my daughter calls it the Smartypants Yuppie School) has individual class web sites, where I (and her parents) (and anyone else in the world who looks) can see her class's weekly homework assignments and photos of her in class, and I'm sure there are strictly enforced rules about gifts for teachers. I'm waiting for the day they put webcams into the schoolroom, although I imagine that would conflict with public privacy (??). I haven't yet seen what her report card looks like (she just began first grade), but I suspect it will have plenty of social behavior categories.

What do Palestinian children get graded on? Iraqi children? Egyptian children? I don't even know what an Israeli school report card looks like! Here's the deal: how about using the Internet to collect actual sample report cards from all countries and especially countries in the Middle East, to investigate educating for democracy in the early grades? I'm not a statistician or a trained researcher, but I know you first have to collect sample data before there can be any analysis, so I just started a social network, prosaically named ReportCardCollection, for collecting the data. To prime the pump, I've posted my own 4th grade report card (1946) and my mother's 5th grade report card (1907), both from the New York City school system.



If you can find a report card for an elementary school child (you can edit out the name, this is not about you or your family or friends), and want to contribute a digital photo of it to the Report Cards group, please email me (savtadotty {at} gmail {dot} com) for an invitation to join the group. The group is private to exclude irrelevant photos. If your report card is not in English, please include a translation into English before you post it, and indicate the country/state, school year (e.g., 3rd grade), and the year it was used. It would also be useful to include whether the school charged tuition (like British "public" schools) or was paid for by the state or a religious institution (or if a bribe was involved!).

Here's a little Report Card Checklist:
Year (e.g., 1975)_____________
Grade (e.g., 4th grade)__________
School System (e.g., New York, Church, Hamas, Shas)___________________
Town/City (e.g., Manhattan)____________________________
State/Country ___________________________
Tuition Free? (e.g., Yes/No/explanation)___________________
Photo owner (e.g., Savtadotty {at} gmail {dot} com)___________________________

Even if your report card is from the fifties or sixties, or earlier, it will be interesting to compare it to more recent ones from the same country/state.

Consider yourself tagged!

My 4th Grade Report Card

1940's NYC Report Card
Originally uploaded by savtadotty.

The vonderful Noorster is helping me to albumise my family photo collection, which dates back before 1900. Without her assistance I had nothing but a bookshelf full of old albums plus a wicker trunk full of loose photos. I am happy to report we have reached the 1940's in this project. Even though the volume of photos increases with each decade, so does the likelihood that I know the names of the subjects!

Scattered in amongst the photos are some early letters and a few report cards: here's my 4th grade report, showing the only U (unsatisfactory) grade I ever received in school, for talking too much. I was nine years old and mortified.

You can see my mother's 5th grade report card (1907!) here.