Arta's Report Cards

More on Arta's scrapbook.

Wyora had carefully glued Arta's elementary school report cards into her scrap book.  What a treat to read through them.  So interesting to look at the 'form' of the report cards, to see what the criteria were through which a child's educational progress was evaluated.   

For the elementary school report cards, there are three general criteria:  

• "Progress"
• "Attitude"
• "Conduct"

Of course they are helping kids learn to read and write, but it is so wild to me to try focusing on ATTITUDE (uh... the phrase 'you have a bad attitude' comes easily to my memory!) and CONDUCT rather than more specifically on the skills of reading and writing.

For the junior high school report cards, there are two general categories:

• "Scholarship"
• "Citizenship"

I find that very interesting!  What are the ways that schooling was explicitly designed to focus on the process of becoming 'a good citizen'?  I wonder if this focus was present before WWII, or if the experiences of the War had shifted the focus of what young people were expected to take away from the experience of education?

But.... back to Arta in particular, one of my favourite report cards comes in February of 1948 (see below).  Arta is in grade 2.  The teacher mostly praises Arta's work, but then adds to comments of note.  The first of these is that "when reading, Arta has a tendency "to overdramatize."  Huh?  That's not the Arta I remember!  :-).  The teacher adds, 

"Arta is developing a most irritating habit. She says "Pardon me?" each time I speak to her.  Then after a pause she answers correctly which shows that she heard and didn't need to have it repeated."  

Hahahaha.   Yes.... politely asking for clarification, when you likely already know the answer.  A most irritating habit!

Here are Arta's report cards for Grades 1, 2, and 3! (and then Grades 8 and 9)

Grade 1 

Grade 2

 

Grade 3

Grade 8 

Grade 9

While I think it is very interesting to have "citizenship" as a criteria, I do notice that the teachers did not seem to fill in the blanks there.  Their focus is on scholarship alone (when it comes to evaluation).  I guess I understand that.  I too wonder how exactly one evaluates criteria like "effort", "self-reliance" and more.