As a college prep school, traditional grading has always been thought of as the norm, but last school year the seventh grade switched it up and began offering a new form of schooling called QUEST. With one year of the program completed, faculty and students are reflecting on the benefits and drawbacks of QUEST.
QUEST is a non-grading system that was put into motion in the 2018-19 school year. The faculty came together and debated whether to start the program in the seventh or eighth grade. They eventually decided on beginning the program in the former because eighth grade is considered to be key in the transition to high school and so letter grades were needed there.
When asked why they started the QUEST program, Kimberly Clarkson, Middle School Director, responded that QUEST is “a faculty-driven initiative that is supported by things that different schools had done in the past.”
We asked the seventh grade teachers about the differences between QUEST and traditional schooling. Jake Greenberg, seventh grade history teacher, mentioned that one of the many benefits is the intense focus on understanding how to learn the material rather than getting the perfect grade. He commented that “the opportunity within QUEST [is] to really focus on the learning and learning process as opposed to being more outcome oriented.”
Clarkson also focuses on similar ways the students could benefit from the importance of the learning aspect of QUEST. We asked her about the main benefits and she responded about the importance of gaining skills rather than learning information. She commented, “Students can make more meaningful connections…the content isn’t so much important as the skills and context are.”
Along with the seventh grade teachers and Clarkson, Elise Trani, a current eighth grade student agreed that QUEST’s focus on the process of learning was beneficial to her. She said that “I also learned a lot about teamwork in QUEST and will continue to use the things I learned in QUEST for the rest of my life.”
Eighth grade student Nick Mandrackie said he experienced both benefits and drawbacks from QUEST: “At points, it felt very pointless because there were no grades and there was a lot of work to do; but at other points we really got to go deep into it because there were no grades holding us back.”
The transition from a more self-reflective and non-graded system to receiving grades also is very important. As for the student’s transition to eighth grade we received various answers from different students.
Elise Trani said, “The transition to eighth grade was normal. It feels like any other year. I don’t think QUEST impacted my transition in any way.” On the contrary, Nick Mandrackie commented, “It was a little difficult in the beginning because I haven’t had grades for an entire year.”
