Annotation—the seemingly simple act of marking a text—is often diminished as a marginal practice. It is prohibited in physical objects and considered irr...

This morning, our six-year old first grader - a kid who has no experience with or conceptual understanding of school grades - showed us a "neat trick." On a piece of paper next to some of his writing (we'd been playing Boggle last night), he drew a lower case "f" next to a minus sign (-) and told us that "f minus is a bad grade." Oh, OK, we said. However, he slyly continued, "Look at this!" And then he drew a curved-ish line down, turning his lower case "f" into an upper case "A." With a finishing flourish, he also struck through the minus, turning that symbol into a plus (+). "It's an A plus," he exclaimed. "What does that mean?" we asked. He didn't know. And we have no idea where he picked up this knowledge of grading, perhaps from a chapter book because his first-grade teacher does not assign grades to the many projects he creates in class. He has never received a grade from an educator in his life, yet he's approximating the act of assigning a grade to himself and believes it's best to avoid an F- and aspire toward an A+. The logics of conventional schooling and success are so pervasive, are odd at face value, and are frankly incomprehensible to children unless they are first trained into a culture of what "counts" as rewarded achievement.

I’ve been teaching—with kids and adults, in schools and online—since 2005. But not this academic year. As the new year starts, ten provocations about education are on my mind. Perhaps one wil…

There are better ways to do the reading, by working together and using digital tools.