Really, what defines who you are?
- Your work ethic?
- Your perseverance?
- Your character?
- Your fight for justice?
- Your accomplishments?
- Your success?
And when you decide those things, then how do you know you’re
doing well? What’s your barometer? What’s your intrinsic motivation? What helps push you onward to attain more, overcome
a challenge by working in a different direction, and persevere to become a
better person? Of course we all have bad
days, but most days we do our best putting as much effort, heart, and soul into
something and hopefully approve of our work at the end of the day or make a plan
to do better the next.
Can I ask then, how would your image of yourself change if you
were graded on it? A number, a score, a
parameter on what you pour yourself into.
You know, each day your principal parades around your room holding up a sheet of
card stock with a large, red D stamped on it? Hour by hour your teammates write on your door window in bold, blue vis-a-vis a
bubble letter grade. It’s so final. A done deal.
No going up or down, no mention of perseverance or progress. Pretty absurd, huh?
In posts before I’ve talked about Dear Boy – such a bright kid
who has more knowledge of history and world events than anyone I know (other
than his grandfather!) and like his Momma he’s been “blessed” with an “out of
the box brain”.... well, blessed as long as it didn’t come to grades and school. I can’t tell you how many ugly scenes have
been played out, turning our home into a battle ground, about grades and how
they defined him negatively. His ideas
and “design” for learning was very different and was almost never acceptable in
the “boxed” parameters of learning which didn’t play out well on daily papers
or a report card. Grades have defined
who he believes he is as a learner and truthfully, what he believes couldn’t be
farther from the truth. But day after
day, year after year he was defined simply with a number – a standard of how he
measured up to 100. What did that number
tell him? What suggestions for
improvement were made through two digits?
How were his accomplishments and small successes acknowledged through
two characters that prominently faced him each time he received papers back
from teachers?
When I began teaching, I worked with two veteran teachers who
were like an old, married couple. I
liked them very much as people, but it was hard to be the black sheep that
didn’t agree with their VERY traditional ways.
I did the daily tasks because it was “what we do” and I was the rookie. All the while I writhed watching the kids who
didn’t “get it” the first time, or kids who had sensory issues and struggled to
function in the typical setting, or the multi-modal learners who were forced to
sit still in one chair and complete a task with rigid parameters. I’ll never forget teaching one of my guys
about angles and distance through the layout of a football field (hello? This is me.... YES, it was painful, but I had
to get my guy to learn this!). He needed
multi-modal learning and immediate feedback, but I felt like I was performing
some type of taboo ritual just to avoid the other teachers seeing me or
discovering what I was up to. ONE LESSON
with “football talk” and the kid got it! It used to kill me to put the required grades
on papers – the kids who did their best, but just didn’t do well on paper were
slapped upside the head defeated by their score and the kids who sailed through
everything and didn’t care about much else cheered themselves for a grade
earned with very little effort. I
watched kids define themselves with a number that I was guilty of placing
prominently on the top of each paper. That
number I so easily tossed down became a badge of honor or one of horror.
I’ve said before, but I have to gush again and say I can’t ask
for better teammates. Although we do get
down with the overwhelming demands on us, being slammed into high stakes
testing and Common Core, other challenges that pull us down, and the increasing
needs of our kids, at the heart of teaching our beliefs are the same. We wrestle each marking period with “putting
kids in a box” – it’s just so defining and truthfully at times can be obsessive
for children and parents, causing them to lose sight of what was accomplished,
overcome, or improved. We focus on our
kids’ strengths and bounce ideas off each other about improving their struggles. We peer coach and give each other suggestions
and feedback; not numbers and scores. We
focus on insight and reflection and ask our kids to do the same. There are many days when I watch the kids’
faces to see the understanding of and connection to what my notes say with suggestions
to make improvement or congratulations on making progress. It’s a similar to a dancer, an artist or a
craftsman – they’d NEVER receive a score, but instead specific, immediate feedback
on their craft to become better at what they do.
We’ve spent the past few weeks on owl research; so many topics
that have been tackled through this inquiry unit. I’ve watched some kids take on unbelievably challenging
topics and others struggle through the simplest. But, how I approach either student is what
makes the difference. For me to give one
student an A when they reach their minimum is just as much an injustice as
writing a D on the student who has reached his/her maximum, but is completing
his job and putting his heart and soul into it, doing the absolutely best job
he can and being pretty darned successful.
The kids pull out their projects, find a sticky from me (I write
directly in journals & learning logs, but not on final projects) with
specific feedback and work incredibly hard to improve and make changes or sit
back and smile with self-satisfaction knowing they’ve done their best and
pushed themselves to do things that didn’t seem possible.
Just today I asked my kids if they knew how they were doing in
third grade. It was a 50/50 split of who
did and didn’t – those who didn’t said it was because they didn’t have grades. I am heart sick to tell you that at eight
years old they equate their learning, their worth to a number. A long conversation ensued and I told them if
they wanted a grade I would give them a Z, an L, or a J or if they’d like a
number I’d be happy to assign a 364, a 497, or even a 1,467. They giggled and started to realize that
learning isn’t about a number and in fact how little a number can tell you. One sweet kiddo said, “You know Mrs. W,
learning is about making your best even better.
It has nothing to do with numbers or letters”. Ah, child.....your wisdom is beyond your
years!
Yes, it takes time. Yes,
I often struggle not to spill my lunch on their work while writing notes. Yes, I get behind.....sometimes VERY behind. But every student gets the same thing, feedback; some
cheering on and specific suggestions for making changes & improvements or a
reference to a learning log to look back at previous work and learn from their
own work. They’re at the point now, only
8 weeks in that they crave feedback and look forward to reading the notes – now
that is pretty cool.
As a kid, I can remember getting work back and feeling the
largest kick in the gut, stomach in knots as I was about to lay eyes on my
grade, that defining moment, the badge of horror, being put in a box that I had
little choice about. It’s not what
happens in my room. The hours I pour into
writing feedback, it’s worth it. Explaining
to parents why I won’t focus on a number, it’s worth it. I’ve seen a huge change in the effort my kids
put into their work and the pride they take in it. There has been a different
level of learning in my room because the kids are always pushing themselves
toward being better – not a better grade, number, or score, but a better
self. They ask each other for
suggestions or give each other rave reviews or specific critiques; they’re in
this for the learning, NOT for the number.
Yes, it is AWFULLY hard to have to think about putting a number,
in a box, on a paper, concretely defining each student, knocking down any
belief in themselves as a learner, in a few weeks – I’d love nothing more than
to accidently drop them all in the burn pile, but I’d even settle to X out each
grade and pour myself into hours of narrative notes. I’ve had MANY conversations with my teammates
and principal about how much I dislike report cards (did I mention that one
time I didn’t read Beezie’s for two months?!).
Thankfully, we are having Student-led, parent conferences so the
students can proudly define who they are, address the struggles they are
working to overcome, and celebrate their strengths and achievements. The report cards will, unfortunately, come
later after our conference. It’s my hope
that they don’t extinguish the pride the kids have in themselves as learners;
the belief they have that they are achievers.
All the time, all of the extras, all of the piles of notebooks
are worth it to me; I need no affirmation other than the looks on the faces,
the seven/eight year old comments, questions, and smiles, the drive for more
and for better. These little people are
counting on me to move them forward and push them to reach for something they
never dreamed of reaching.
They really do believe the stars are waiting...
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