Good Grief, Not Grades!

I hate grades.  Even before my teaching career began, I had an aversion to grades.  When I applied to colleges, my first choice was Reed College in Portland, OR, a decision largely influenced by their practice of not distributing grades to students, but instead, a narrative of the strengths and weaknesses demonstrated regarding the expected learning of the course.  This type of personal feedback attracted me as a student; even though my grades had always been high (maybe because they had always been high), I felt that a single letter was not an accurate depiction of the level of my learning.

Now, on the other side of the red pen, I have even more difficulty reconciling the grading process.  For the last thirteen years, each grading cycle has produced anxiety in me.  Each time, I have wrestled with whether or not I am a fair grader, if the grade I assign to a student is the most honest evaluation, if there was any way I might be wrong and if so, how would that mistake impact the student's life.  Assigning each piece of paper a point value and then equating the amassing of points to a particular letter grade has never felt right to me.  It is simply how my grades had always been determined as a student and how I was expected to determine grades for my own students.  It was unquestioned, accepted, even made a certain type of sense, but what seemed to be missing was a real sense of what the student actually knew.

But this week, things have changed.  This week determining quarter grades has been a pleasure. In fact, it has been more than a pleasure.  The grading practice I am implementing allows me to have a conversation with my students about their growth toward the learning goals of the course.  In the course evaluations I had my students complete this week, one actually included the comment: "I would like even more opportunities to show my progress toward our course standards."  Doesn't that blow you away?  A students asking for more work  -- and not extra credit or to get more points, but to show how he is progressing as a learner in the class. 

This summer, I worked with many other teachers from my district on developing learning scales on the essential standards for our courses.  Our district school reform is being guided by Robert Marzano, both his research and his actual physical self.  I spent much of my poolside reading time annotating Marzano's books, rethinking my teaching and reorganizing my assessment practices.  Tossing out a points-based, percentage-producing grading system was liberating and exciting, but I still worried about how things would come together once grades had to be reported.

I won't go so far as to claim every student is ecstatic about this or that all of them even fully grasp how the new grading practices work, but honestly, the transition has been smoother than I ever could have imagined.  Now, the students' grades are based on what specific skills and knowledge they have demonstrated.  Points and percentages really have nothing to with it.  As each student conferenced with me, we agreed on their level of proficiency on eight standards for the quarter.  Then we determined an overall score for three categories (Reading, Writing and Academic Skills) and put those together to ascertain the level of proficiency in the course as a whole at this time. 

Basically, what I really feel this all comes down to is that I have finally found a way to evaluate my students that treats them with respect -- as if they are valuable and important regardless of what the grade they earn happens to be.  I hope as each of them sat with me and we talked about their progress, that they felt like they mattered.  Because they do.

Tell Me What You Want

My husband and I have been married for almost 12 years.  We are starting to figure each other out.  Just now.  Recently, we had a very long, emotional "discussion" at 1:00 in the morning -- when most of our relationship breakthroughs occur.  I will spare you the details and simply say that in the end, I realized that if I want my husband to be the husband I need, I need to tell him what that means.  This is not to say that he has never been the husband I need.  In fact, with as little direction as I have given, he has done an amazing job of figuring it out.  But ultimately, he can only do so much when it comes to reading my mind, and even more difficult, my heart.

As hard as it was, though, for me to tell him exactly what I need from him in our relationship, the impact it has had on us has been tremendous.  Now, for some, being as direct with someone about what you want or need is not a challenge.  I have always struggled with it, though, because I feared hurting him.  I worried that sharing what I needed would make him feel judged or betrayed.  What I had to realize was that what I saw as protecting him was actually keeping him from growing.  It was like giving a plant water and food, but hiding it from the sun.  When we do not tell people what we want, we diminish their capacity to meet those expectations.

With my parenting, I have had far less trouble with this.  In fact, I work quite hard at not just telling my children what I need them to do, but modeling for them the appropriate responses and requiring them to practice.  For example, if one of the boys demands, "Get me some milk!" I do not say, "Please ask more nicely next time," have them agree and then proceed to get the milk.  Instead, I try to say, "That was not a nice way to ask for milk.  Instead, you should say, 'Mom, could you get me more milk, please?' Now, let me hear you say that." This does not always translate into perfect behavior (what an understatement!) but I am confident that the boys are  clear about my expectations and because of that, the likelihood of them responding and interacting in appropriate ways is increased.

In the classroom, I have been somewhere between these two ends of the spectrum.  I believe my students always sense the expectations that I have for them, but I do not think I have been as conscientious as I need to be in this area.  Over the summer, I read a number of books by Dr. Marzano.  While much of what I read matched up neatly with my philosophies and practices, I realized that in terms of clarity and focus in terms of what I need my students to learn, I had some growing to do.  Not only do I think my students in the past have been fuzzy about exactly what they were expected to know, I was fuzzy, too.  I had a sense of what I wanted them to be able to do, but truly showing them how to get there was a leap I wanted them to make without the kind of direct instruction they needed to do so. 

Recently, we have been working with the concept of archetypes and their influence on literature.  Giving students a list of common archetypes is useful and all, but the skill I expect is that they can analyze the influence archetypal characters, images, and motifs have on a work of literature.  That step, from recognition to analysis, is one I have asked my students to make in the past without ever actually showing them how.  Honestly, the process is so natural for me, I had to slow down, and really think about what I do to move from one to the other.  This sharpened my ability to transfer this knowledge to my students and, in the end, resulted in their success.

Telling the people in our lives what we want or what we need is not selfish or hurtful if we are doing so to help them grow and if we do so with a heart and spirit of kindness, encouragement and love.  I believe this is happening with my children, with my students and with my husband (You can read his blog about our recent date to hear more!). Success is sunshine to their flowering confidence.  And if it makes me happier, too -- even better!