Cultivating authentic success means that we readily and happily recognize our children’s strengths and let them know that these strengths are genuinely valued and valuable. You can’t fake this.
– Madeline Levine, Teach Your Children Well

Our kids attend a public elementary “choice” school, one that emphasizes growth mindset, experiential and collaborative learning, and social-emotional awareness. There are no grades and no homework. Subjects are not divvied up into textbooks or worksheets, but mingled together in the guise of overarching topics and projects. Learning is fun (the school operates its own fully-functional farm). Which is why our kids then hit middle school and become perplexed about these things called grades. One of them said to me once, after not getting a top grade, “mom, maybe I’m just not smart.”

Actually, I told them, you’re figuring out what I experienced in reverse. I grew up in a fixed-mindset educational system that told me good grades make you smart. I learned to perform well, even if it meant avoiding challenges I wasn’t likely to excel in, or spitting back answers for a test without really thinking too hard about why they were true. It wasn’t until nearly the end of my educational years that I figured out that the things important to being a learner—critical thinking, creativity, curiosity, interpersonal acumen, and more—aren’t necessarily measured in a grade at all.

It’s been interesting figuring out grades from our kids’ points of view. For them, it’s like accepting a strange new reality in life, learning how to play a game that involves jumping through hoops that don’t necessarily have anything to do with what they know about true learning.

And grades certainly do not equate with intelligence. For one thing, intelligence comes in many forms. Madeline Levine writes about this in her book Teach Your Children Well:

The most highly regarded researchers in the field of education agree that there is little value in thinking about intelligence as a single, static entity, whether it’s Howard Gardner’s concept of multiple intelligences (logical, verbal, interpersonal, kinesthetic, visual/spatial, existential, intrapersonal, naturalist, and musical), Robert Sternberg’s theory of triarchic intelligence (analytic, creative, practical), Peter Salovey and John Mayer’s emphasis on emotional competence, or Carol Dweck’s concept of fixed versus growth mind-sets . . . In fact, conventional IQ tests predict only about 10 percent of the reasons why your child will be successful in school and the workplace.

Take Howard Gardner’s forms of intelligence. Here is a brief description of each kind:

• logical intelligence: able to reason, analyze, and recognize patterns; good at thinking conceptually about numbers, relationships, and patterns; like problem-solving, experiments, thinking about abstract ideas, and solving complex computations

• verbal intelligence: able to use words well when writing and speaking; good at writing, reading, memorizing, reading

• interpersonal intelligence: able to understand and interact with other people well; good at assessing emotions, motivations, desires, and intentions of others, and communicating both verbally and non-verbally; likes relating with others, can resolve conflict, see things from different perspectives, create positive relationships with others

• kinesthetic intelligence: able to move and control body well in space; good at hand-eye coordination and dexterity; likes dancing, sports, creating things with hands, learning by doing

• visual-spatial intelligence: able to visualize things easily in space, like maps, charts, videos, pictures; good at recognizing patterns and interpreting photos and diagrams; likes to read, write, and/or draw, give speeches, explain things

• existential: able to use collective values and intuition to understand the bigger picture; good at thinking philosophically, envisioning future, and guiding in the big picture; likes pondering fundamental questions of existence like why we live or die, where we come from and are headed

• intrapersonal: able to be aware of their own emotional states, feelings and motivations; good at self-reflection and analysis, exploring relationships with others, assessing their strengths, daydreaming; likes introspection, analyzing theories and ideas, understanding the basis for their feelings and motivations and being self-aware

• naturalistic intelligence: able to be in tune with nature and aware of subtle changes in their environments; good at exploring and nurturing environment, finding patterns and relationships to nature; likes studying natural world, outdoor activities

• musical intelligence: able to think well in patterns, rhythms, and sounds; good at recognizing musical patterns and tones, remembering melodies, appreciating music; likes playing instruments, composing music

We tend to value forms of intelligence that are easier to quantify, easier to objectively measure and outwardly display. It’s easier to value a kid who can manipulate numbers with ease and score well on math tests than one who has a gift for introspection and gets lost in daydreams. And as our kids get older, we increasingly want them to exhibit resume-friendly kinds of gifts: high grades, fast race times, perhaps an artistic skill if they can win some kind of award for it. It’s harder to put a talent for negotiating relationships or asking deep questions about life on a resume.

But here’s the thing: all of these forms of intelligence are valuable. All of them have the potential to lead to fulfilling vocations later in life. Our kids are the truest barometer of whether we believe that or not, because they tend to pick up on what we really care about. If on some level we still believe that our child isn’t “smart” unless they have a pristine transcript, they’ll figure that out. And what they conceive of as “success” will correlate directly with the values they pick up on from us, and the values they begin to develop for themselves.

Here’s what I want my kids to know: if you didn’t get a top grade, maybe it means you’re still figuring out how the grade thing works, or why they matter in the real world. But as long as you give it your best effort, the actual result doesn’t change how we feel about your intelligence, or how you should feel about your intelligence. The question to ask is not, “am I smart?” but “how am I smart?” and that’s not a question a grade will always help you answer.