What Do Grades Really Measure?

When I feel my ideas growing and changing, it almost always hurts, like someone turning a great big crank in my head that doesn’t get used often enough. I’ve been thinking about grades and grading lately, and I’m not sure which way is up anymore.

As a student, I enjoyed a positive relationship with grades. I honestly believed that grades measured my mastery of content, my learning. If I earned a 93% on a test, I believed that I had demonstrated comprehension and retention of 93% of the expected material. If I earned a 93% on an essay, I believed that I successfully expressed my points in written form. It felt clean and straight-forward to me, and I enjoyed the extrinsic measure of my intrinsically motivated hard work and intelligence. It seemed to me that American society rewards extrinsic measures, and I didn’t do well in most of them. We didn’t have a lot of money, I wasn’t the prettiest girl, and I didn’t possess athletic ability. I was smart, and my grades proved it. Like the season records of sporting teams I didn’t make, my grades showed that I did something well.

When I first started teaching, I used a grade formula that gave almost all the weight to tests and essays. When report card time came around, it distressed me to see that students who took two tests and wrote one essay could score a B in my class despite missing lots and lots of homework and class assignments while kids who really worked hard but had trouble testing nearly failed. I restructured my grade formula to give more weight to homework and class assignments. I didn’t teach honors kids like I had been; I taught students who sometimes struggled to learn or struggled to prioritize learning, and I felt that I needed to let all the practice and effort count.

Currently, I teach in an English department that requires a certain number of essays to pass the course. If students skip or fail even one of the essays, they do not pass the course. We call them Core Assignments. In a composition class, my assignments tend to build in difficulty: the first essay can be first person with no quotations; the second essay requires quotations and third person voice, and the third essay is a big research project. If students skip the research essay, for example, they wouldn’t have demonstrated the mastery of writing that students who struggle through it will demonstrate.

Recently, I’ve started reading Bill Ferriter over at The Tempered Radical. He’s a middle school teacher who doesn’t give zeros anymore. Now, he’s in a school system that supports his efforts with scheduling and duty assignments. I’m not teaching twelve year olds; in high school and beyond, the GPA becomes a nationwide phenomena that’s difficult to duck. However, the concept that I’m using grades to reflect punishment and reward rather than to measure learning took my breath. I’ve spent some time asking my colleagues: Does a student’s grade measure what he or she has learned or reflect how much he or she has turned in?

What should a grade measure? One colleague said that bosses don’t want employees who do one or two jobs brilliantly but skip everything else assigned to them. Grades, she reasoned, reflect a mixture of content and skill mastery along with work behaviors. If parents or students want to break out learning mastery from work behavior issues, that can be done by looking at the exact numbers contributing to the student’s grade. Ferriter argues that grades should measure purely learning, and he assesses work behaviors separately on a rubric that is not numerically represented in the grade. Should single assessments like tests and essays measure learning as opposed to quarter grades? Are grades really a measure of cooperation as much as learning? Is that okay?

Years ago, a close teaching friend and I argued over the concept of a school without grades. At that time, I wanted to know if all the sports teams at such a school would also forgo scoring, based upon my own relationship with grades as a student. Yet whenever I’ve defended grades, I’ve done so because I believed they measured something more worthwhile than obedience. I’ve always taken late work because I agree that work worth doing is worth doing late, but I’ve always taken some points off. I don’t think I’ve asked myself if the grades I give as a teacher measure what I believed the grades I received as a student did. Sigh. I’ve got more thinking to do on this one…

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

"Teacher, What's my Grade?"

Ten years ago, this question played a normal part of my teaching life. Occasionally, I printed out grades (names obscured by a code, of course) and taped them to the door, so students could see where they stood. A few kids might keep track of their grades in the back of their notebooks, but essentially, if they wanted to know the real numbers, they had to ask me.

As we rolled into the twenty-first century, however, school districts and technology made some changes. For about the past five years, I’ve been logging student grades into a Learning Management System that makes those grades available through the Internet. If the assessment isn’t an essay, I often have the grade posted by the end of the day; it just helps me keep track if I don’t let entering the grades pile up. Students’ averages are calculated by the minute, for them to stare at and for their parents to critique.

So now when a student strolls into class and says, “What’s my grade?” my chest clutches a little, and I hear, “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.” Unlike the old days, this student has access to all his or her grades. The question has come to mean, “What the hell are you doing to my grade?” Getting defensive isn’t helpful. I try to remember that despite the consumer/product nature of LMS grading systems, it is just a tool, and I am still the teacher. I try to smile and say, “Why, let’s look at it together, okay?” I know that this is Stage 1)—the stage where the student and I look at the potential problem. Stage 2) brings in the cavalry, and that can be exhausting…

Most of the time, the student has turned in make-up work that I have not graded and entered yet. LMS grading systems obscure the fact that I, a human being, am doing the grading and entering the data. Its instantaneous automation creates a false sense of “real time” for students. If they turn something in at 2 p.m., they expect to see it on the grading system by 6 p.m. While I do accept late work, I don’t usually grade it right away. Once students are sure I have their late work, they usually leave our meeting satisfied.

Sometimes, the problem rests with user error. Some students may be able to access their grades, but they don’t really understand how to read an incomplete course average, which can also be assuaged with two or three minutes of help from me. It is true that every so often, “What’s my grade?” leads to a testy confrontation, but really, that happened when I taped grades to the door, too. Something about the LMS grading system makes me feel more vulnerable. I guess because I used to decide when grades would receive the most scrutiny. I didn’t tape the grades up unless all the make-up work was entered or before I’d nagged students to make up missing tests. Now the grades are available for scrutiny 100% of the time. I’m organized—I’m smart—I can handle it! However, I am sorry that “What’s my grade?” now makes my back stiffen…

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

How About a $75,000 Raise?

In the New York Times, Elissa Gootman’s “At Charter School, Higher Teacher Pay” has me thinking. The first principal and school founder, Zeke M. Vanderhoek, plans to pay his teachers a starting salary of $125,000 year. As principal, he will earn $90,000. He is 31 years old, and he taught middle school for three years through Teach for America after graduating from Yale himself. His teachers will put in a longer work day and school year than traditional teachers and will have additional administrative responsibilities. “The school will open with seven teachers and 120 students, most of them from low-income Hispanic families. At full capacity, it will have 28 teachers and 480 students. It will have no assistant principals, and only one or two social workers. Its classes will have 30 students.” Getting a job won’t be easy for interested teachers: “There will be telephone and in-person interviews, and applicants will have to submit multiple forms of evidence attesting to their students’ achievement and their own prowess; only those scoring at the 90th percentile in the verbal section of the GRE, GMAT or similar tests need apply. The process will culminate in three live teaching auditions.”

Okay, so the first thing I did was look up my GRE scores. I consider myself a good teacher, and for all that additional money, I suppose I’m willing to brush up and take the test again to lift my lazy 89^th percentile up a notch. To be completely candid, that percentile qualification rubbed me a little wrong. While I think test scores matter, I’m not certain they reflect everything my students have learned, and I’m not convinced my GRE verbal score reflects my capacity to teach language. I suppose GRE scores reflect some level of intellect, however, and the cutoff has to be somewhere, right?

Next, I wondered about working for a 31 year old principal without school management experience who earns less money than the teachers. Won’t the fact that the collective experience of Vanderhoek’s teachers greatly outweighs his own be a problem? I’ve never held a position of authority over my fellow teachers, but my experiences running the occasional workshop (as well as the behavior I’ve observed during faculty meetings) leads me to believe that we teachers can be a tough crowd. Would an additional $75,000 each make us more cooperative or attract people who do what’s best for the school without ego? If the principal is the only administrator in the school, and he is not the highest paid executive officer, will the leadership role still work? Perhaps the entire power structure would be different. As principal, does Vanderhoek still fire teachers or determine class loads and room assignments?

Some of my other considerations are more personal than professional. Would earning $125,000 for my teaching (assuming I could make the cut, of course) give me the same martyr satisfaction that I get from earning $50,000 at the master’s level after thirteen years of experience? (Oh, I’m sorry, is my Catholic showing?) Does the same kind of teacher seek out the big salary? I’d get public school kids with a private school paycheck. In truth, I’ve never dreamed that I could earn that much money without sacrificing my democratic ideal that strong teachers should remain with higher need students in the public school system. If I could afford to truly travel or pay someone else to clean my home, would I have better energy for my students? How much longer is the workday and work year? If someone else cleaned my house but I had to be at school until 6 p.m., would my energy level end up being the same? Would I feel more patient and less frustrated if I could buy better shoes and afford to have my hair professionally highlighted? Would I have to dress better and start getting real haircuts? Am I even motivated by more money?

Maybe the thought of earning over a 100K for my work is so completely unfathomable to me that I can’t properly think about it any more than I can imagine sprouting wings and flying to work. With that pay scale, I start to think that teaching would require the kind of “on-site” time dedication other jobs that pay 100K require. Currently, I do lots of my work from home; I grade essays at 5 a.m. or on Saturday afternoons while I watch my son play in the yard, and I email reminders to students on Sunday evenings while watching television. I work many hours “off site,” planning lessons in my head while I drive or browsing for articles and topics on the Internet. If the 100K requires more hours in the school building, I’m not sure teaching would permit me to be the kind of parent I’m striving to be. Then again, who knows? Maybe I could work part-time for more than my current full-time salary. (I have to say, I find that much more tempting. If I had fewer students and more time, I dream I could fix the world, one five paragraph essay and close critical reading assignment at a time.) As the old joke goes, “They say money won’t fix education. I say, ‘Let’s try it once!’” Good luck, Principal Vanderhoek. I’m very interested to see what this experience yields. May it benefit both students and teachers…

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

Soon It will be Morning in my Classroom...

Well, my weekend of revitalization paid off. I can now see past the state testing to the new horizon: my classes after Spring Break. The state testing will be over, yet it won’t be the tougher, keep ‘em in their seats weeks of late May and June. There will be a few, short, sweet weeks when the content of the curriculum can be more fully mine. I can indulge the kinds of lessons that made me want to be a teacher and quite frankly, those lessons will work because my students will have some writing competency built up from the institutional rigor I’ve used up to this point.

In some ways, the freedom makes me dizzy. Since April is National Poetry Month, I’m leaning towards a poetry unit. I discovered the Poem in Your Pocket movement, and it dovetails nicely with my latest thrilling book discovery: How to Make Books: Fold, Cut & Stitch Your Way to a One-of-a-Kind Book, by Esther K. Smith. This book would have changed my life when I sponsored the school literary magazine; it still may change my life. Smith calls the first book an instant book, and to me, it is a paper folding miracle. Using an 8 ½ x 11 inch piece of white paper, Smith shows readers how to make eight folds and one cut to have a six page miniature “zine.” No glue. No stitching. The best part? It uses images from only one side of the piece of paper, so feel free to Xerox the content and fold away for cheap and darling mass production. Amazing. One of the big components of teaching writing pedagogy is publication, and this technique makes it easy and satisfying to reach that point.

The state objective, “Students will gain an appreciation for literature,” graces many of my lesson plans, but rarely do I get to make it the main thrust of my content. I know that some of my students will groan and that they may not react with the same energy and enthusiasm for a poetry unit and pocket poem mini-books that I have, but at the very least, units like the one I’m planning offer me a chance to be excited about reading and writing in front of them. I can hardly wait…

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

Saturation Point

March rears her head in just a day or so, and with her, she brings the state testing for which I’ve been preparing my students. The only thing I’m confident about is that I am more concerned, more prepared, and more focused about the testing than any of my students appear to be.

I am pacing myself through grading the piles of practice essays, forcing myself to stop when I grow inattentive instead of rushing through the last ones in the pile just so I can say I got it done. No, I step back, exist under the nagging sense that grading is waiting for me and return to it with a fresher eye the next morning. This kind of discipline grows from my belief that careful, specific grading on my part will inspire students to careful, specific editing on their part the next time they write.

My students’ attendance grows increasingly spotty at this time of year; there’s not much on the calendar to look forward to besides our testing dates, and I suppose I grow more serious and disturbingly earnest around this time, too. I might do a mini-lesson here and there of something fun or interesting, but the major thrust of each lesson now is test preparation; we administer it in two weeks time. Things students do frequently, like working on an out of class assignment while I’m reviewing a lesson, upset me more as we enter this phase of test preparation. I get tense—“Listen! Pay attention! Please trust me that I know what you should be doing!”

If history repeats itself, the majority of my students will do fine, and I will relax again. It’s just that saturation point in the semester. I’ve taught them the test skills. They’ve gained much of what they will gain. I can’t move on yet—the test is nigh. I need to hold them here, reinforcing, emphasizing, (sometimes) begging. It’s not the time of year that made me want to be a teacher, but it is one of the required elements, at least at this point in educational politics.

It’s the time of the year when I feel like my students should know certain things, and when they don’t, I take it personally. (If I really link my mental health to students’ mastery of the semi-colon or apostrophe, I could be doomed.) It’s the time of the year when the end seems merely theoretical. It’s the time of the year when we as teachers need to breathe fresh air into our own lungs as people beyond the classroom because until the testing is over, the air at school has gone a bit stale. I’ve hit my saturation point. It’s time to meet my classroom responsibilities while casting my horizon outside the school door. An art project, a new fiction author, plans for a weekend trip—there are various ways to remind myself that while I use teaching to define who I am, teaching doesn’t have to define my entire life, especially when it becomes so test-preparation centered. This weekend, I’m going to try to focus upon the things I really like about being a literate adult. Sometimes teaching writing makes me forget the joys of reading and writing; without that joy, I know I’ll lose the spark that makes teaching worthwhile, and that’s too high a cost for any test.

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

Recovering from My Mistake

I raised my voice to a student yesterday. It wasn’t worth it. She’s been absent for more than a month, and she called me with a list of reasons and things she felt I’d done wrong, and after listening to her, I started to speak. And she kept talking. And talking. I started with a sharp, “Excuse me” that escalated to a shrill (okay, I shouted) “EXCUSE ME! LET ME SPEAK!” She followed up with a rousing, repeating refrain of “WHO’RE YOU YELLING AT? WHO’RE YOU YELLING AT?” and explained vehemently how she expected to be treated by her teachers, and alas, it did not include yelling. Neither one of us hung up, and we talked our way back to reasonable, and she apologized for misunderstanding a few things, and we have a meeting scheduled to address her needs, but man, I’ve been sick over the yelling match. It has cost me so much more than I gained.

Why did I yell? I yelled because, in that moment, I clung to the mythology that as her instructor, she should show me respect and not speak over me when it is my turn to speak. Ha ha ha. Maybe that’s true some places, but I’ve made a decision to teach students who don’t come from an educational tradition, and the notion that teachers inherently get respect is foreign. It is earn-respect-as-you-go around here, and I know that. I signed up for that. It’s just when she kept talking over me, I forgot, and I just wanted my rank to assure me my turn. Yelling gained me nothing and lost me ground with this student. Also, should I have further problems with this student, she can always say to my department chair and my dean that I yelled at her, and it will be true. Yikes.

So now that I’ve smoothed things over with the student, it is time to forgive myself. I’ve spent a lot of the last fifteen hours since the incident replaying the event and seeing if I can justify my behavior. I really can’t. I think it was a human moment, and I am entitled to be human, but it wasn’t a shining teacher moment, no matter how I look at it in various lights. I’m relieved I didn’t curse or name call. Sheesh. When I lose myself to frustration like this, I realize I need to spend more time trying to be happy in my personal life, doing things I enjoy. I draw upon the energy that enjoyment gives me when I’m in difficult communications, and obviously, my reserve is a little too dry. I try to read lovely articles about teaching like this one, and remember that I’m not teaching everyone; some kids love school and reading. Going for a run helps. At a former school, I used to run with a fellow teacher, and we joked about getting t-shirts that read “Pound Pavement not Students.” Confessing to fellow teachers has always helped me, too. I’ve always been surrounded by the kind of peers who support me when I’ve made a mistake like this one, who reassure me they’ve had bad moments, too. Knowing that teachers I admire have stepped off the patience wagon helps me to let it go.

I always spend a little time when this happens wishing I could be more intimidating; I don’t think this student would have talked over just any teacher. I have an accessible affect that can be misunderstood as easy to bully, I suppose. However, I doubt I can conjure up a new affect now. So self acceptance is part of this post-mistake process for me, too…Sometimes I’m not a teacher, but a person waiting for her turn to share her side, and I, too, want to feel heard. I know from experience that silence would have worked better than yelling, but I made things right with the student, and now I will forgive myself for my moment, brush myself off, and work at keeping my love of teaching at the forefront of my mind.

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

"Hey, Teacher, May I Have a Do-Over, Please?"

Well, quite frankly, I don’t think many of my students use this orphan-like phrase when they ask me to forget the past and let them begin again. We are six weeks into our semester, and just in time for Valentine’s Day of Love, some missing students have surfaced and asked me to find it in my heart to forgive them and let them begin again. One gentleman has had three consecutive weeks of absences; I’d stopped counting him when determining copies of handouts. He returned contrite and naïve, speaking vaguely of eye infections. “Can’t I just do all the work and catch up?” he asked earnestly, his eyes begging me to let bygones be bygones.

It is a teacher’s cliché to resent student versions of “Did I miss anything?” It feels like admitting that I am just a distributor and collector of papers to say, “Oh of course you can make up the past three weeks with a packet!” Perhaps if I put less of my heart into pacing and designing everything, it would seem less hurtful. To be fair to students, they didn’t invent this system of making up work. I’ve had numerous administrators direct me to “make up a packet” for my units on Shakespeare or research essay writing or other huge undertakings that use up all my teaching talents to try to get intangible concepts across to students. I resent the reductive nature of make up work more for how it reduces me and my teaching than for the work it takes to compile it. And that I fear may be vanity…

As for the work it takes to compile make up work, I must be honest and say I resent that, too. Here I’ve been at school, keeping my end of the bargain and teaching. A perpetually absent child has now returned, his return a harbinger of paperwork I must now assemble. Yet, philosophically, I believe in second chances. I believe in letting students make new choices today based upon the insights and maturity they have gained. I just have trouble believing it in practice. So, I’ve come up with a little compromise. I tell my earnest-turning-a-new-leaf students that yes, they can make up what they have missed, and yes, I will compile that for them. However, I will only allow them to make up work if they have good attendance for the next two weeks. If these students truly do return and attend and keep up with the current work as best they can, I find my desire to catch them up generates all on its own. After two weeks of attendance and effort on a student’s part, I am again smitten. Intoxicated with the potential of keeping a lost sheep in my flock, I tend to put together a much better make up packet. This compromise, I figure, keeps me from missing anything…

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher