What My Teachers Told Me About My Proficiency
By Belinda Reyes, Energy Convertors x Lodestar Fellow
For a recent assignment in the Energy Convertors fellowship, we had the opportunity to go beyond the overall test scores we had been examining and take a closer look at our school’s data. I dug a little deeper by interviewing two of my teachers and reflecting on their answers.
Initially, before starting this assignment, I remember feeling slightly uninterested in having to interview a teacher. My English teacher was quite busy, and it was difficult to find a time that worked for both of us. For the second teacher, I didn't exactly know who I wanted to interview. That changed one day after school, when I sat with a teacher who was available. That was when I took the opportunity to get that portion of the assignment out of the way.
To say the least, I was shocked at the results of my two interviews. I came to realize that these two teachers think highly of me as a student. In both English and Biology, I was informed that I am indeed proficient, and my grades in these classes reflect that. As a student, I am aware of my abilities and my capacities. There is simply something about a teacher telling me this that felt different from what I already knew.
Like anyone else, I still have many things I can improve and ways to better myself. Something that I was very surprised to be informed about, and truly unaware of, was that I was reading at a 12th-grade level as a 10th grader. I do not say this to myself often, but I was proud of myself.
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Grades do not always reflect a student’s proficiency levels. How can that be? Students usually develop a certain mindset at an early age. A student begins to believe that in school, the most important thing is getting good grades. The people with the highest grades are rewarded, earn certificates and medals, and get into good colleges.
In reality, this is not always the most important thing. Yes, it may help in many ways and is highly valued, but proficiency is the true factor that majorly impacts a student. Proficiency shows what a student truly knows and can learn, rather than what a paper or number says.
In certain situations, such as those I have faced before, a student may not be able to turn in work but still knows the material and can clearly explain the topic. In these cases, students’ grades suffer and do not reflect what they know. Other instances occur when students think their worth is based only on grades.
Many students develop this mindset and lose interest in learning. Instead, they rely on alternative sources. These can include cheating, whether by copying from friends or using tools such as AI. When students rely on alternatives, they may improve their scores but gain little real knowledge beyond how to cheat.
Moving forward, I hope to meet several goals based on the information I gathered from meetings with my teachers. One of these goals is to find more time at home to read. Although I love reading and spend time reading on my own, I usually don't have much time to do so. In the future, I will try to manage my time better and fit reading more into my daily schedule.
Along with reading, a helpful tip my English teacher gave me was to annotate as I read, write down unfamiliar terms, and then research them. I can see this becoming very helpful in heightening and improving my overall vocabulary.
With this knowledge, I can now move forward and share with other students things that can be crucial to their education. Reminding or even teaching students that grades don't always reflect proficiency can be really important. This, along with meeting or communicating with teachers, is something that I believe every student should do. In many cases, students are not aware of their reading levels.
By reaching out, they can learn where they are, where they should be, how they can improve, and what resources are available.
