Streaks suck.

Imagine going to the gym, attempting a weight you couldn’t lift, and having someone erase three successful workouts from your record.

You’d probably find another gym.

Put the same arrangement inside an educational app, call the number a skill score, and apparently we’re teaching children.

I have some objections.

A failed attempt is one of the least surprising things that can happen while learning. You encounter something you can’t do. You attempt it. You discover where your present ability ends. Then you have something to work on.

Deducting points at that moment makes the attempt itself expensive.

Now the child has two problems: the mathematics, and the possibility that trying it will cost them something they care about.

We’ve managed to introduce portfolio management into primary education. Splendid.

The prudent student learns to protect their position. Choose something familiar. Avoid the exercise that looks difficult. Keep the score healthy. An adventurous afternoon could do terrible things to your aptitude.

I want the child who takes a proper swing at a difficult problem to feel that they belong here, including when they miss.

There’s a passage in Lighthouse, performed by Alex G and Danielle Bennett, that I keep coming back to. Bennett describes persisting with an effort whose eventual success hasn’t arrived yet, and offers this:

“Sometimes, it’s just a way of growth.”

— Danielle Bennett, Lighthouse

Anyone who has spent time becoming competent at something should recognize the experience.

You do the work again. You’re still bad at it, although perhaps less spectacularly. Something starts to make sense. You make a different mistake. Then, one day, you manage the thing.

There was no reason to expect every attempt along the way to produce a successful result. That’s why you were practicing.

And “wrong” is a remarkably incomplete description of an attempt.

A student might have understood the method and lost a sign. They might have corrected the mistake they made yesterday and uncovered another one. They might have worked independently for the first time instead of waiting for someone to supply each step.

There is useful information in all of that. I want the product to help them examine it.

Watching a number fall contributes very little to the examination.

Neither does losing a streak because Wednesday got away from you.

Children have limited authority over Wednesdays. Parents make plans. People get sick. Dinner runs late. Someone books an activity that requires the entire household to spend ninety minutes locating a shoe.

The child returns on Thursday.

I would like them to find what they’ve built.

Their previous work should still be visible. Their earned rewards should still belong to them. They should be able to recognize their effort and think, quite reasonably, that more effort will add to it.

Taking something away interrupts that relationship.

You worked for this. You earned it. Unfortunately, our calendar has raised an objection.

Of course, actual skills need maintenance. LogNormal is a gym for mathematics, and the inconvenient thing about that comparison is that you really can lose strength when you stop training.

I can’t prevent a child from getting rusty. I can decide how the software responds.

We can identify what needs practice without confiscating their history. We can give them work appropriate to their present understanding without pretending their previous achievements never happened.

What they can do today deserves an honest assessment. What they earned yesterday deserves to remain theirs.

Education should never be punitive.

That leaves plenty of room for demanding work. A wrong answer can remain wrong. A problem can remain unfinished. A student can need another attempt, another explanation, or considerably more concentration.

Nobody needs to award competence that hasn’t been demonstrated.

But I want to preserve the willingness to attempt it. I want a child to return to difficult work with enough confidence to risk being wrong again.

Their collection, their history, and the visible evidence of what they’ve accomplished can help them do that.

So we’ll keep those.

Bring the effort. Make the attempt. Look at what happened.

There’s enough work in learning mathematics without making children afraid of the accounting.