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Monday, May 18, 2009

How Children Evaluate Themselves

Sometimes, as an exercise in self-evaluation, I ask the students of my class to mark their work on a scale of 1 to 10. (This is different from those times when I provide them with a rubric to guide them.) I might give them a very general direction like, "How involved were you? How much did you contribute to the rehearsal?" etc. Before they tell me their evaluation of themselves, I put down a mark on 1 to 10.

More often than not, students mark their work lower than I have.

Is this because they are modest or because they are far more critical of their own work than other people?

A recent self-evaluation had a Grade 6 student give herself an "E" because, according to her written explanation, she was "confused inside (her) head" when she went on stage. None of this confusion showed, of course, and I replayed the performance tape to check if it did. What was really interesting was that she did not comment on her greatly improved voice projection (and give herself a high grade for that) - she chose to be self-critical to the point of awarding herself the failing grade.

Is she the exception to the rule?

2 comments:

  1. Well isnt it most often the rule? Even as adults most often are governed by the same psyche! Is it merely to reflect or authentically self evaluate? Is it necessarily a correct judgment? OR is it to reflect modesty and not call ourselves too good? I dont know. But the day we recognise ourselves in the true mirror of life, we will not need to self evaluate.

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  2. The onset of persona
    The onset of puberty
    The need for acceptance that is fed by society
    Causes the sun in each of us
    To dim as we traverse infancy and adultery
    Pausing briefly at animal promiscuity why not?
    And we build false paradigms to evaluate that
    Which really should be let be
    Modesty and perspective are not concepts that life
    Is.
    The metrics

    of our lives' outlooks
    Add up stacks up build on burn through
    nothing,

    The Boy King is John.

    Long live John.

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