Imagine you’re sitting in math class and your teacher is handing out the hardest test of the year. You get an 85%. You think it is a great grade and you feel extremely proud of yourself. Then, one of your classmates asks a question that they always feel the need to ask: What is the class average?
Your teacher responds and gives your classmate’s answer; the average is an 87, two points higher than what you got. With one response to one simple question, you went from feeling great about your grade, to feeling like you should have done better.
But what would it be like if that question wasn’t asked and answered? If that question wasn’t asked, you would still feel great about your grade, not sad and disappointed.
Teachers shouldn’t be able to share the average because it makes students feel bad about their grades. Really it is none of the students’ business what the average is, since one person’s score can throw the whole scale off. The average has nothing to do with the individual student because one person could have gotten a 100%, boosting the class average even though it’s only reflective of a single grade.
Teachers are there to encourage their students and help them learn. But when a teacher shares the average with their class, they are encouraging comparison within their class environment, causing students to have more stress than they already have. One average is not representative of a student’s work ethic and intelligence, and it can easily be misunderstood to be much more important than it is.
Telling the class what the average was just tells students how the majority of the class did on a particular test. Hearing that the entire class did well should not take away from you feeling good about your score, no matter what it is. Even though the average is just a collection of data points, it can be stressful since you are led to believe that everyone in your class did better than you, students with low self-confidence. There is enough stress going around Staples, and students don’t need the added stress from their teachers by sharing one data point.
