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So when I was 15 years old,

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I felt my first real life calling.

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Thanks to a group of Olympic athletes

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who were coaching kids for free 
right here in San Jose,

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I fell in love

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with one of the most obscure
sports in the world:

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the hammer throw.

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Now, I imagine you're all familiar
with the shot put, the discus,

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maybe even the javelin.

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So here's the moment 
you've all been waiting for:

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Hammer Throwing 101.

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Imagine you took a 16-pound bowling ball,

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and you lodged a broomstick into it,

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and then you spun it around so fast 
that the ball went 60 mph,

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and it built up centrifugal force

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up to 500 lbs.

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And then you let go 
at just the right moment

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so that it could fly higher 
than an eight-story building

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and nearly the length of a football field.

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And that gives you some sense

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of the unique difficulty 
and appeal of hammer throwing.

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But despite having the best 
teachers in the world,

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the first day did not go well.

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In fact, I fell down.

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Couldn't have done worse.

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But I got back up,

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took thousands of throws,

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and got better over time.

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So while I started at zero,

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by the time I was a senior,

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I had the farthest throw
for a high school student in the country;

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earned a scholarship to Georgetown -

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go, Hoyas! -

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in 1996, I made my first Olympic team;

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and eventually I threw 260 feet,

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which is one of the farthest throws
in American history.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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But to be honest with you,

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the real benefits of that activity ...

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were that it paid for my education,

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it allowed me to see the world,

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and it allowed me
to form lifelong relationships

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with some very amazing people.

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But as an educator these last 20 years,

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I often wonder

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what would have happened 
to my Olympic dream

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if I had been graded

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in the same way that we grade 
kids in the classroom.

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Quick history of letter grading 
in the United States.

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Letter grading actually started in 1897

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out in Mount Holyoke College,

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where they decided to grade 
their students' work from A through E.

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Now, one year later,

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they realized that E
was being confused with excellent.

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(Laughter)

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And that's where we get the F 
that we all know and dread.

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(Laughter)

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So we're talking about 
a 120-year-old way of assessing students.

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Now, assessment is great.

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I spent probably more time 
watching video of hammer throwing

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than I did actually throwing.

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But letter grades present 
a number of serious problems.

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Number one:

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Letter grades are unreasonably permanent.

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So let's go back to my Olympic story.

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On day one, I would have gotten an F.

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By the end of the semester, probably a D.

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Now, as a senior, 
I was leading the country;

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I'll take the A.

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But all of this is going to be averaged.

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And so I probably got 
about a 2.5 GPA in hammer throwing.

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And with a 2.5, colleges would say 
I'm not ready for the next level,

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and my Olympic dream would be over
almost before it began.

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Now, you might be thinking, "OK. Well, 
that's sports. Different from academia."

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Well, let's check in with your typical 
high school freshman.

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Let's call him Doug.

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So Doug,

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for whatever completely rational reason,

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he bombs his first biology test
his freshman year.

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Maybe he has the flu.

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Maybe something's going on at home.

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But he starts off with an F.

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He gets better over time.

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By the end of the semester, Doug is 
the best biology student in the class.

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But it's all going to be averaged,

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so Doug gets a C+,

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and that C+, it's forever.

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So Doug as a senior

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could go on to do research

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worthy of a Nobel Prize in Biology

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but cannot get a 4.0.

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And I want you to think
about Doug's situation.

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How many of us, if we were in a footrace,

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if you fell down at the start,

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and you knew you had no chance 
of winning or even placing well,

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would get back and run all out?

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That's really hard to do.

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Or consider the role reversal.

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I know hundreds of teachers,
and I don't think there's any one of them

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who would want a grade 
on their first year of teaching

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that stuck to them
for the entirety of their career.

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I know I wouldn't.

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What we're missing out on is the do-over.

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Everything that we do in life -

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you know, our basic life skills -

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we're terrible at them at the beginning.

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From walking to talking to riding a bike,

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we all get better
by a process of do-overs.

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Or take design.

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This is a Ted event after all.

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The logo that everybody knows

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because of the cool arrow 
in the negative space,

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the FedEx logo there,

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famously went through 200 iterations
before they got to this version.

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This was not 199 failures 
and then a sudden success;

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it was an evolution.

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Or consider the paragons 
of success that we admire:

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Thomas Edison,

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famously finding out 1000 ways 
to not make a light bulb

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before the light went on;

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or Walt Disney,

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whose first animation company
went bankrupt;

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or Maya Angelou,

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who endured one of the most difficult 
childhoods you could possibly imagine

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to come back and become one of the most 
influential voices of the 20th century.

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What do these people have in common?

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It's not education.

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It's not money.

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It's not privilege. It's not talent.

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It's resilience.

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And when we don't allow for a do-over,
we don't build that trait

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that is most in common for people 
who have achieved great success.

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Grades are stressful by nature.

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If we talk about student stress,
we should listen to them

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because what they tell us
is absolutely shocking.

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In 2015,

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the California Healthy Kids Survey

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revealed that one out of three students
reported chronic sadness ...

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depression.

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And the year before,

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the American Psychological Association

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asked students: "What is
the leading cause of stress in your life?"

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and identified school as number one.

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And one in four said 
it was causing them extreme stress.

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And it's not just grade permanence
that causes this.

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There's something inherent 
about grades themselves.

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I want you to imagine 
the world's worst video game.

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We're going to call it Level Down.

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And in Level Down, you start off 
with everything unlocked.

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You've got all the super powers.
You've got all the gear.

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But you only get worse over time.

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Two things would happen
if you played Level Down:

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you would lose interest very quickly,

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and you would also focus
only on the things that could go wrong.

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There's nothing to strive for.

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And this is very much the situation
of high school students.

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Even if our man Doug gets an A
on that first biology test,

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he can only hold on or do worse.

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And so he's basically
doing a tightrope walk,

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and if he gets to the other end
of the semester with the A,

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the chief emotion
he might experience is relief.

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The chief emotion of learning and
bettering yourself should not be relief;

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it should be joy.

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Now, you might say,

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"Well, OK, education: 
serious stuff, it's not a game."

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And I would beg to differ.

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It's already a game.

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It's just a really stressful
and oftentimes boring game.

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And all the students
know the rules to this game.

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Rule number one:

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Find out what the teacher
really wants me to know.

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Number two:

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Cram the night before or during lunch
or in the car or during break.

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Number three:

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Spit out that answer
that that teacher wanted to know.

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And repeat.

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This is not a fun game.

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It's a very stressful game.

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And we need to change the rules.

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Grades are counter-motivational.

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What I mean by that is

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they literally motivate traits
that we don't want to foster.

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All right. We've got three paths here.

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The one on the left takes three hours.

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The one in the middle takes one hour.

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The one on the right takes five hours.

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If there's $100 at the end of this path,

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which road are you going to take?

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Students are not dumb.

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They'll do the same thing.

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This means taking the easiest classes,

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the easiest teachers, 
the least complex projects,

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because the pay-off's the same,

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and as a result,

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what are we actually encouraging?

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A minimized work ethic.

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A conformity of knowledge:

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Don't question the teacher;
it's only going to hurt your grade.

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And most painfully of all, for me,

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an actual avoidance of creativity.

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00:09:24,239 --> 00:09:26,003
Why would you come up with a solution

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that's different than the A work
that the teacher provided as a sample?

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I would point out

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that these are the traits

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00:09:35,190 --> 00:09:38,973
that we look to for innovators in society:

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people who are incredibly hardworking,

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00:09:41,895 --> 00:09:43,969
people who think differently,

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00:09:43,969 --> 00:09:46,321
and people who are creative.

210
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Now, some might say,

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00:09:47,375 --> 00:09:51,713
"Well, it's kids these days. 
They're just lazy."

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00:09:51,713 --> 00:09:52,998
But they're not.

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00:09:52,998 --> 00:09:55,484
Our man Doug, he'll work incredibly hard,

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00:09:55,484 --> 00:09:57,156
just after school,

215
00:09:57,156 --> 00:10:00,349
whether it's doing a sport
or leveling up in a video game

216
00:10:00,349 --> 00:10:02,227
or figuring out a skateboard trick

217
00:10:02,227 --> 00:10:04,867
or figuring out some new, you know, 
song on the guitar.

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00:10:04,867 --> 00:10:06,762
They will spend hours on this,

219
00:10:06,762 --> 00:10:08,494
on learning.

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00:10:08,494 --> 00:10:10,714
What are we depriving them of in school

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00:10:10,714 --> 00:10:12,974
that they're getting after school?

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00:10:12,974 --> 00:10:15,257
Daniel Pink

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00:10:15,257 --> 00:10:18,337
wrote a groundbreaking book called Drive,

224
00:10:18,337 --> 00:10:20,967
where he described that 
what we really are motivated by

225
00:10:20,967 --> 00:10:24,272
are autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

226
00:10:24,272 --> 00:10:27,953
Essentially, we want the freedom
to choose what we're doing.

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We want to figure out
things that are hard.

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00:10:31,966 --> 00:10:33,682
And we want to know that it matters,

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00:10:33,682 --> 00:10:36,910
either to our future
or to the benefit of the world.

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00:10:36,910 --> 00:10:41,810
In short, students want the freedom
to develop skills that actually matter.

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Four:

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Grades distract from
the actual goal of learning.

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All right. This is Ernie Sheldon.

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00:10:51,265 --> 00:10:56,495
Ernie wanted to break
the seven-foot high jump record.

235
00:10:56,495 --> 00:10:58,424
This was a big deal in the 1950s.

236
00:10:58,424 --> 00:10:59,570
No one had ever done it.

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00:10:59,570 --> 00:11:01,911
It was kind of like the four-minute mile.

238
00:11:01,911 --> 00:11:03,493
So Ernie was so fired up

239
00:11:03,493 --> 00:11:07,722
that in his bedroom,
he put a tape mark at seven feet.

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00:11:07,722 --> 00:11:09,389
Fixated on that number.

241
00:11:10,459 --> 00:11:14,577
Ernie jumped 6'11" dozens of times

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00:11:14,577 --> 00:11:16,464
but never jumped seven feet,

243
00:11:16,464 --> 00:11:18,865
because he was so focused
on the end result

244
00:11:18,865 --> 00:11:22,992
and not on the process
on actually how to jump better

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00:11:22,992 --> 00:11:26,333
that would give him the end result.

246
00:11:26,333 --> 00:11:29,258
So if we replace that tape with the grade,

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00:11:29,258 --> 00:11:31,064
you can see the problem.

248
00:11:31,064 --> 00:11:33,161
And there's some research to back this up.

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00:11:33,161 --> 00:11:36,030
Ruth Butler took three groups of kids

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00:11:36,030 --> 00:11:39,414
and said we're going to do
two academic tasks,

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and, group number one, 
we're going to grade you.

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00:11:41,699 --> 00:11:44,994
Group number two, we're
just going to give you comments.

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00:11:44,994 --> 00:11:47,493
Group number three, 
we're going to do both.

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00:11:47,493 --> 00:11:50,224
Guess which group outperformed all others

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00:11:50,224 --> 00:11:55,184
in both performance academically
and in their interest in the projects.

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00:11:56,848 --> 00:11:58,242
Group number two.

257
00:11:58,242 --> 00:11:59,485
In other words,

258
00:11:59,485 --> 00:12:02,425
just knowing they were being graded

259
00:12:02,425 --> 00:12:04,785
actually made them perform worse.

260
00:12:05,395 --> 00:12:08,763
So knowing all this, why are we doing it?

261
00:12:08,763 --> 00:12:10,440
Who do these grades actually serve?

262
00:12:10,440 --> 00:12:12,659
The only answer I can
come up with is colleges.

263
00:12:12,659 --> 00:12:14,379
They need to differentiate students.

264
00:12:14,379 --> 00:12:15,500
I get it.

265
00:12:15,500 --> 00:12:20,272
But consider the fact that two teachers
in the same department of the same school

266
00:12:20,272 --> 00:12:22,735
might disagree on assessment.

267
00:12:22,735 --> 00:12:26,453
Or the fact that schools
use different grading scales.

268
00:12:26,453 --> 00:12:31,345
At one school, the same student
gets a 4.4, another one a 3.8.

269
00:12:31,345 --> 00:12:32,623
Same student.

270
00:12:33,785 --> 00:12:36,908
Or the fact that the letter grades
don't mean anything anymore.

271
00:12:36,908 --> 00:12:41,864
There was a time that a C
literally meant a mathematical average.

272
00:12:41,864 --> 00:12:46,694
I don't know a class in existence
right now where that's the case.

273
00:12:46,694 --> 00:12:49,024
So what do we do?

274
00:12:49,024 --> 00:12:50,897
I give you some what-ifs.

275
00:12:50,897 --> 00:12:54,984
What if more colleges subscribed to
Freshman forgiveness?

276
00:12:54,984 --> 00:13:00,187
So our state schools and our UC system
and some private schools do this.

277
00:13:00,187 --> 00:13:01,887
But it should be standard.

278
00:13:01,887 --> 00:13:04,679
What if colleges
focused more on portfolios:

279
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what students designed,

280
00:13:06,882 --> 00:13:09,504
what stories they told,

281
00:13:09,504 --> 00:13:12,238
what research they've done,

282
00:13:12,238 --> 00:13:14,007
and what have they written?

283
00:13:14,007 --> 00:13:19,487
You're going to get a much more clear
picture of who that person actually is.

284
00:13:20,216 --> 00:13:23,726
All right. Who can figure out
what these three students have in common?

285
00:13:25,994 --> 00:13:28,034
They have the same GPA.

286
00:13:28,900 --> 00:13:30,510
And that's crazy.

287
00:13:31,467 --> 00:13:37,027
I propose that if there was a calculation
of slope that followed the GPA ...

288
00:13:38,597 --> 00:13:41,312
something that gave us
a little bit of story,

289
00:13:41,312 --> 00:13:43,609
a movement index

290
00:13:43,609 --> 00:13:44,741
so we could understand:

291
00:13:44,741 --> 00:13:48,308
Hey, student number two is excelling

292
00:13:48,308 --> 00:13:50,128
and probably really ready for college.

293
00:13:50,128 --> 00:13:51,507
He just had a rough start.

294
00:13:51,507 --> 00:13:54,470
We should know that story, 
and it's not that hard.

295
00:13:54,910 --> 00:13:56,700
What can educators do?

296
00:13:56,700 --> 00:13:58,286
We can gamify our classes.

297
00:13:58,286 --> 00:14:00,831
Students can level up
instead of level down.

298
00:14:00,831 --> 00:14:02,549
We can give them a sense of mastery.

299
00:14:02,549 --> 00:14:06,518
So a student who's in calculus
really has mastered algebra first.

300
00:14:06,518 --> 00:14:07,925
We can flip our classrooms.

301
00:14:07,925 --> 00:14:11,058
We can provide resources
that students can access at home

302
00:14:11,058 --> 00:14:13,013
so they're not so stressed.

303
00:14:13,013 --> 00:14:14,555
We can have do-overs

304
00:14:14,555 --> 00:14:17,019
so students' work can improve over time.

305
00:14:17,019 --> 00:14:20,701
And lastly, we can link learning.

306
00:14:20,701 --> 00:14:22,649
This is when you work with a professional

307
00:14:22,649 --> 00:14:26,357
who's using the skills you're learning
in class in their professional life,

308
00:14:26,357 --> 00:14:28,244
which gives it purpose.

309
00:14:28,244 --> 00:14:30,379
For the last five years,

310
00:14:30,379 --> 00:14:32,188
I've tried all of these,

311
00:14:32,188 --> 00:14:34,224
and I can tell you they work.

312
00:14:34,224 --> 00:14:37,487
My students are less stressed,

313
00:14:37,487 --> 00:14:39,321
more engaged,

314
00:14:39,321 --> 00:14:41,511
and producing better work.

315
00:14:42,882 --> 00:14:44,713
So make no mistake:

316
00:14:44,713 --> 00:14:48,969
there are alternatives
to traditional letter grading,

317
00:14:48,969 --> 00:14:54,229
and in a world that is changing
more quickly than ever before

318
00:14:54,229 --> 00:14:57,670
and facing unprecedented challenges,

319
00:14:57,670 --> 00:15:00,920
we're going to rely
on education more than ever.

320
00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:02,972
And after 120 years,

321
00:15:02,972 --> 00:15:04,818
I hope you'll agree:

322
00:15:04,818 --> 00:15:06,470
we're ready for an upgrade.

323
00:15:06,470 --> 00:15:07,514
Thank you.

324
00:15:07,514 --> 00:15:08,534
(Applause)