If my years of adolescent beatings for anything less than an A taught me anything, it was: don't bring report cards home on Friday and sign your own progress reports.
Great points, especially #4 (reminds me of the "No Speed Limit" post from Sivers), but I wonder about #3. It was (maybe still is?) common for lazy nerds to bemoan "Why couldn't I have been praised for effort instead of smarts as a kid?" as if that was the major cause of their laziness. I've suspected that even if they were praised differently it still wouldn't have helped many such lazy nerds because the effort required would still have been very minimal up until they hit their limits where things weren't so easy anymore without working hard (AP classes, college, sometimes all the way to grad school). As far as the effects of praise can shape someone I've figured getting praised for something you didn't do is worse than being praised for a trait, even if being praised for something you did do is better than for a trait.
Bingo. For me, it was different when parents handed out a beating. The school? Just no.
My own kids were through school before the portal and notification systems arrived in our schools.
In some ways, it is good to know problem areas early. There is time to make changes. As a parent, I would have appreciated that.
As a student? Ugh. Many parents are busy and I can see the whole thing suffering from the same "5 star" problem we see in rating systems all over the place.
It all gravitates to 5 stars being the constant expectation.
Maybe I am glad I didn't have to deal with that mess. Being involved in my kids education was work, maybe more than today.
Or maybe not. I wonder how many overcorrects happen due to a kid just having a bad day. Or the stress of just having a bad day amplified?
