Why reward mediocrity?

One reason I know it's time for a change is that my philosophy of acknowledgement and reward no longer fits the tone where I work. From the perspective of most adults, they realize that if you put in some effort to do a good job at whatever your task, you'll only have to do it once and then you can move on to the next challenge. Time and energy aren't wasted, and you can savor the accomplishment as you move forward. That's no longer the view at my workplace.

The current plan is to provide instruction, to present a means (or a variety of means) by which to discover whether each participant understands and can use the skills and content introduced and practiced, and if a participant isn't successful for any reason at all, that participant can request private tutoring and another, personally designed means of assessing his/her understanding and ability to use those skills and content. The participant who makes the request and completes the second assessment earns the higher of the two grades. If the participant simply does nothing, the participant is given a grade of 50%.

Given.

A participant can earn a grade of 0% if he or she does no work whatsoever during a quarter or fails to appear to take one of the two cumulative exams. Otherwise, if a participant puts forth minimal effort - like attempting an answer or two on an assessment, even if the responses are clearly wrong - the grade of 50% is required to be awarded.

What has this policy taught? That there is no need to pay attention the first time or to put in effort at the time requested because there will always be another chance with no penalty. That, as with sports teams for very young children, if there's even a hint of effort to show skill, everyone will be rewarded. That the burden is on the instructor to personalize the teaching rather than on the student to learn. Until very recently, a student was encouraged to develop the skills of advocating for him/herself by asking for extra help before an assessment, and of becoming aware of his/her own learning style and tailoring the effort toward learning to be done on his/her part. Do flashcards work? Does conversation with a peer or the instructor individually help? Will recopying notes or extra practice be beneficial? That policy has changed.

There are learners who do enjoy learning, who do strive, who recognize that their efforts toward achieving goals DO matter, and I've been fortunate to have many of them around me in these past few years. However, many more learners have developed what I would call a dangerous laziness from our current mandated practices. Mediocrity is good enough for them, in fact a low enough bar, an easy enough goal to be widely achieved and one that's not only truly possible in our current environment, but also the only one for a large portion of our populace.

Years ago we had a day-long training with a man named Todd Johnson who verified for us that in the balance of teaching and learning, the teachers shouldn't be working harder than the students. He offered a few very simple classroom guidelines, clear expectations, and firmness (and fairness) in adhering to them. Excuses were acknowledged but they didn't eliminate the responsibility of the students to do the work. We have finally moved 180 degrees away from that philosophy. Since this platform reflects my belief about training adolescents to become resourceful, intelligent, and reliable adults, I no longer fit in where I've spent my whole career.

I don't understand the rewarding of mediocrity. "Well, you tried...or you made it look like you tried. That's good enough," just doesn't fly with me, and I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of employers and heads of organizations feel the way I do. I will be watching - in fascination or in horror - from afar to see how this current school of thought plays out and for how long. My hope is that the pendulum swings far, and soon.