“We Are Making Our Children Slaves of Grades”: Zhanna Andreasian

The Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture, and Sport, Zhanna Andreasian, has made a post stating:

“In one of my previous posts, I was asked to pose a question for parents. I have long wanted to write for parents, as a parent myself. Dear parents, we often complain about the school. I do not wish to discuss the validity of these complaints. I want to talk about a behavior that we, the parents, often exhibit. The first question many of us ask our child who returns home from school is, ‘What grade did you get?’ The second question is, ‘What did so-and-so get?’ Why did so-and-so get this many points while you got only that many? And without realizing it, we are turning our children into slaves of grades, as they begin to experience stress after receiving the lowest mark, as if it’s the most important issue in life. Or, perhaps worse, we start to create an insurmountable distance and alienation between the child and learning.

We often talk about our child's learning from a position of pity, using words like ‘poor thing.’ It’s a pity to not take them out of school quickly, let them skip today, what can happen, it’s a pity to make them attend one more lesson, my poor child. The result is that education and learning become something that invokes pity and is considered optional.

Our discussions tend to focus more on teachers’ gifts and gossip around the school than on the quality of subject teaching or the problems in our children's education. Our parent meetings often revolve around discussions about individual children's behavior and character, in front of everyone.

Yes, our school has many problems and needs to change. But if we really want that change, we must change ourselves as well, dear parents.”